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THE CRIMSON HAND, 



AND 



OTHEE POEMS. 



BY 



s^ 



ROSA VERTNER JEFFREY. 



i 



J 




PHILADELPHIA: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO, 

1881. 






Copyright, 18S0, by J. B. Lippincott & Co. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

The Crimson Hand 5 

The Lighthouse Star . . 18 

Hasheesh Visions . . .23 

Baby Power 30 

Sea-Dreams .33 

Pas Encore . . . . . . . . . .36 

Two Women 38 

Lessons . . . ... . . . . .42 

A Glove . . . 46 

"Under the Sands" 47 

Rest 50 

Christmas Pictures 51 

The Total Eclipse of 1869 56 

Inconstancy 58 

The Phantom Ball . . . . . . . . .61 

A Rose 65 

Help 66 

A Legend op the Lucciole 68 

Forevermore 71 

Cleopatra . . . . . . . , . . .74 

Nursery Rhymes 76 

Sailing — Drifting 77 

A Memory 79 

The Comet of 1858 80 

Tempus Fugit— 1880 82 

Christmas Faith 85 

Grecian Poetry versus Modern Science . . . .87 
Life Pictures: 

No. L— AVinter Twilight . . ^ 89 

No. XL— Childhood . . . ^ 91 

No. III.— School-Days .93 

3 



4 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Nothing to Eat 95 

Ix Memoriam 96 

A Summer Idyl 100 

Anno Domini 1869 102 

Centennial Hymn, 1876 105 

Dead 107 

Owl in Church 110 

The NiGHr has come 113 

Gold 116 

Love and Reason 117 

Love and Jealousy 119 

Love and Ambition 123 

Two Lovers 125 

Silent "Wooing 135 

Two Crowns 137 

Little Things 139 

A Heavenly Kiss ......... 140 

The Flight of April 141 

Casper's Vengeance 146 

Elder-Flowers 149 

LiLLA Clare 151 

Reconciled 154 

The Waters of Life 158 

Born Blind 160 

A Legend of the Red Bud 161 

Among the Lilies 162 

The FI:te of the Flowers 164 

Two Streams 175 

Sunset Symbols 183 

Little Paul 184 

King Winter's Frolic 195 



THE CRIMSON HAND. 



A Louisville Conrier-Journaly during the winter of 1874, took notice 
of a single cornstalk, in some Western field, upon which grew five ears, 
blood-red, and clinging together in the exact shape of a human hand. 



In a modest Western village, 

Girdled by the prairies wide, 
Three bright children grew together, 

And were nurtured side by side. 
Two were strong, brave boys ; the other, 

A fair girl, — so fair, I ween. 
All the flowers that flecked the prairies 

Might have claimed her as their queen. 
There they grew and played together. 

By no tie of kindred bound. 
Young McAlpine's Saxon forehead 

Sunny tresses softly crowned ; 
While to Unez — dark hair sweeping 

Round a low, swart brow, remains 
From Castilian blood still leaping 

Hot and fervid through his veins, 
And his lustrous eyes surcharging 

With the fires of love or rage, 
Storm and strife mayhap betokened, 

Or a stain on life's fair page. 

1* £ 



THE CRIMSON HASD. 

And tbe littk furj NeU 

Was a diild of light and shade ; 
Sdny deeps shone through the ripples 

By her snmiy laughter made, — 
A laie and spaitiing mysteiy, 

Half angel and half human ; 
Child with a maiden's sweet repose 

Foreshadowing the woman. 
And yeaiB came gathering on apace, 

Tm tan and fidr they stoc L 
The boys spnu^ np to man's escaie. 

The ^ri to womanhood. 
McAlpine son^t for &ne abroad, 

'Hid sdioob of ancient art. 
While a fortone rose to Unex 

From the prairies' teeming hearts 
Hot flames had licked its bloom away, 

Bnt m^nory 1^ the hours 
To them of childhood's holy day, 

Fn^;rant with prairie flowers. 
Fidds were sown, and vineyards blushing 

AB along those Western wilds, 
Where came " iron horses" sweepii^ 

Fiery manes down iron miles. 
For thai quiet little Tillage 

To a wealthy mart had grown j 
Upon the crown of Enterprise, 

A peari of price it shone. 
And when returned McAlpine 

From his wanderings afar 
He beheld his playmate Neta 

Beaming there ^^ a Western star." 



THE CRIMSON HAND, 

Unez wooed her long and fondly ; 

His fierce suit she had denied. 
But so charmed each firm denial 

That he lingered at her side. 
Expectant, fond, and tender. 

Oftentimes her dark eyes shone. 
When they wandered longing outward 

Far beyond the prairie's zone, 
Where great iron ships were steaming. 

Flashing through the white sea-foam, 
Whence one too long a wanderer 

Might seek his native home. 
He came at last, and shadows 

Round young Neta's beauty grew, 
As twilight, when her star appears. 

Oft in purple veils the blue, 
Then the heart of Unez kindled 

With such pent-up fires as feed. 
Fierce emotions, like coiled lightning. 

In black clouds where tempests breed. 
Two strong men, with one ambition, 

Striving each for one rich prize, 
Could the winner find much favor 

In his luckless rival's eyes? 
Though still friends, in outward seeming. 

Yet their friendship was as dead 
As is an empty dark cocoon. 

Whence the shining moth has fled, — 
Dead as those ghastly ferns amid 

Fresh living clusters seen. 
When along their fine veins scorching, 

Fervid suns have sapped the green. 



8 THE CRIMSON HAND. 

Came a time when lovely Net a 

Pledged her faith one slumbrous mom, 
When late summer days had woven 

Silken tassels round the corn. 
When autumnal tints were creeping 

Upward through the ripening blades, 
Golden strata underlvins; 

Deepest green of forest glades. 
And when Christmas snows were fallins:, 

When a warm and ruddy glow 
Fell upon the scarlet holly 

And the waxen mistletoe, 
Stood she in her bridal vesture, 

Delicate as ocean-foam. 
With a band of maidens waiting. 

Waiting for her ''king" to come. 
"Where's McAlpine?" Quick that whisper 

Caught the lady's listening ear. 
" Scarcely past the time," she answered. 

" Patience, he will soon be here." 
Down the noonday's dazzling dial 

Lengthening shadows slowly creep ; 
Down the church-aisles, through the chancel, 

Organ anthems softly sweep, 
While the perfume of exotics 

Out from flower-wreathed altar steals 
To a brilliant throng there waiting 

For the joyful wedding peals. 
Past one hour, and then another, 

To the westward swept the sun ; 
Anthems died, — the gay throng wondered 

And departed, one by one. 



THE CRIMSON HAND, 9 

Up the purple strand of twilight 

Night's dark tidal wave had rolled, 
Sweeping off its soft gray ashes, 

Quenching out its pallid gold. 
Still, so still, — the misty vesture 

Of her veil looked cut from stone, — 
Stood young Neta, tearless, watching. 

Watching for him still, — -alone ; 
Till fond arms had clasped her, breaking 

That sad vigil, long and dumb. 
Then she wailed, " Oh, never, mother, — 

He will never, never come !" 
And these words appeared prophetic, 

For days, weeks, months rolled away, 
Yet none knew why young McAlpine 

Came not on his wedding-day. 
Some lamenting, some condemning, 

Who could read a story rife 
With mystery ? Who could brighten 

Neta's sad and blighted life ? 

^ ^ ^ :}c * 

From the happiness he envied 

TJnez fled in wrath away, 
But was seen, so rumor whispered, 

On that long-remembered day. 
Riding swift his coal-black Arab 

Towards a station — down a lane — 
In the cold gray of the morning 

That his horse was brought again 
By an Indian to the stable. 

But when asked from whence he'd come, 
Came no answer, then, or ever. 

For the lad was deaf and dumb. 



10 THE CRIMSOy HAND. 

And some little bojs that morning, 

It was said, had traced a glow 
Of firesh blood along a a)m-field. 

Glaring red npon the snow. 
All were Tague. uncertain stories. 

Few sraTe heed to. or believed ; 
But long afterward thej wondered 

How so many were deceived. 
Youth and strength, with deadly sorrow, 

In the girl's fresh heart held strife ; 
Past the hot mirage of fever, 

And she grasped the palm of life. 
***** 
Two sad years had fled, and snmmer. 

Passing out through leafy aisles. 
Kissed the trees, and left them slowinsr 

With the memory of her smiles. 
Fruit and grain were gathered, garnered. 

Stretched the wide fields brown and bare, 
While a shadow of the harvest — 

Warm and solden — ^linsered there. 
In the gloaming Xeta wandered 

Through a winding path which led 
Past a corn-field to a thicket 

Where the brightest leaves were shed ; 
Stretched a rich field out before her 

Wrapped in twilight's purple haze ; 
Here and there, the distance breaking, 

Rose a few tall stalks of maize 
By the harvesters forgotten, — 

Now aflame beneath the fold 
Of the sunset's banner, smitten 

By its sweep of red and gold. 



THE CRIMSON HAND. 11 

And as Neta's gaze went outward 

'Gainst the western light revealed, 
Five small ears of maize stood clustered, 

As if graved on shining shield. 
All their yellow husks had fallen, 

Pointing upward, red and bare ; 
Freak of nature — grown together, 

Like five human fingers there. 
And while gazing at this wonder, 

Sprung from out a teeming land, 
Neta whispered, " 'Tis the semblance 

Of a monstrous blood-stained hand," 
And — against a tall fence leaning — 

In the dark she lingered yet, 
'Till the night, with sable etching, 

Turned that crimson hand to jet. 
When she left it, waking, sleeping, 

In her haunted sight it stood. 
From those seamed and wrinkled fingers 

Oozing forth great drops of blood. 
'Twas a fascinating horror 

That she longed to see again; 
And when scowling, fierce November 

Drenched the flaming woods with rain, 
And, in mimicry of winter. 

Dropped a fleecy, snow-flaked veil 
On the glowing landscape, turning 

Autumn's sun-flushed beauty pale — 
When low storm-clouds, swiftly sailing, 

Surged the gray horizon's shore ; 
Bleak as icy billows breaking 

Upon dismal Labrador — 



12 THE CRIMSON HAND. 

To the field once more she wandered ; 

No soft golden tints were there, 
But that crimson hand still standing 

Beckoned in the chilly air. 
Deeper dyed it looked in contrast 

With the snow-flakes from above 
Clinging round it, in the semblance 

Of a ghastly, tattered glove. 
Neta gazed, not from a distance, 

As before, but, drawing near. 
Stood beneath it cold and shuddering 

With a superstitious fear. 
And when homeward — moved by terror- 
She had turned, a dusky form 
Stood beside her in the gloaming, 

Like a spirit of the storm. 
Stricken with a nameless horror 

Neta shrieked and would have fled. 
But in earnest, mute entreaty. 

Bowing low, with finger laid 
On his silent lips, — a gesture 

She was quick to understand, — 
Turned the Indian lad, while pointing 

To that spectral, blood-red hand. 
And then, crouching, he uprooted 

Stalk and root with his strong blade, 
Like a bare arm, gaunt and bony, 

'Mid the snow-wreaths it was laid. 
And those ragged, outspread fingers 

Cast red shadows on the rime. 
On the cold snow, pure and stainless, — 

Blood-red shadows of a crime ! 



THE CRIMSON HAND. 13 

For beneath that stalk uprooted, 

As the Indian turned the mould 
From its clammy, damp embraces, 

Lo ! a fleshless arm was rolled. 
And beneath the pallid moonlight 

On one bony finger shone. 
As in bitter, ghastly mockery, 

A gleaming crimson stone. 
Then a wild cry rent the stillness. 

For the thing she feared to know 
All unsought had come to Neta 

Grim and ghostly from the snow. 
Hidden long and stamped with murder, 

Yet, alas ! she could but prove 
That the ruby ring was given 

To McAlpine, with her love. 
AVho might break that seal of silence ? 

For the Indian was mute 
As was that red hand springing 

From a tainted, blood-stained root. 
And the maiden wept with anguish 

When, upon her outstretched hand. 
Making low and dumb obeisance, 

Placed the youth that jewelled band. 
Then she left him, turning homeward ; 

But, with earnest, pleading face. 
Quick he gained her side, and oiTered, 

With the red man's native grace, 
A rough scroll, and crudely written. 

Then sped swiftly out of sight. 
All alone, locked in her chamber, 

Neta read his tale that night. 



14 THE CRIMSON HAND. 

" I have learned," thus ran the story, — 

" Learned to write, that I might tell 
To the lovely, pale-faced maiden 

By whose hand her lover fell 
On the night when last ye parted. 

He fought long, by insult stung, 
With your other lover, bravely, 

Till his strong arm useless hung. 
Gashed and shattered by a bullet ; 

Then he fell, when, crouching low, 
Unez stabbed him, lying prostrate. 

Helpless, bleeding, in the snow. 
But ere yet by hasty burial 

He could hide his crime away 
Came a sound of wheels and voices, 

With the breaking of the day. 
And the pale-face fled aifrighted, 

I pursued him, full of fear ; 
He was wary in the daylight. 

And espied me lurking near. 
When, beguiled by gold, I followed 

Onward, even to his home. 
Why should Unez fear me, knowing 

I was voiceless, — deaf and dumb ? 
He bestrode a coal-black charger. 

And I mounted too, behind ; 
He forgot, though deaf and swarthy 

And a mute, I was not blind. 
On the fire-horse he swept northward, 

And while grooming that dark steed 
Swore I that these silent senses 

Should reveal such bloody deed. 



THE CRIMSON HAND. 15 

When I sought McAlpine's body 

It was missing, but I found 
That the crushed arm— ^from it severed — 

Had been buried in the ground. 
Was the brave man hewn to fragments ? 

Were they buried stark and cold 
By sly, cruel hands, all greedy 

For the pale-faced murderer's gold ? 
Yon red sign in accusation 

The Great Spirit raised, and now 
You have seen, pale-faced lady, 

How the Indian keeps his vow." 

^ :}c * jK * 

Then a cry for swift, sure vengeance 

Through that Western land was rung, 
Till the guilty man was fettered, 

Tried, and sentenced to be hung. 

^ * * Ji« * 

" No, not guilty," thus defiant. 

Did the sullen prisoner plead ; 
" How had proved his dumb accuser. 

That the missing man was dead?" 
But the Indian's strong, terse statement 

Would admit of no reprieve. 
And where late that red hand beckoned 

Hose a gallows Christmas-eve. 

* * * * 5fj 

'Mid a band of sweet-voiced singers 

Stood fair Neta, sad and pale. 
As was a marble crucifix 

Near the holy altar rail : 



16 THE CRIMSON HAND. 

Of the murdered and the murderer 

She thouo:ht, and of that time 
When no shade, 'mid prairie blossoms, 

Fell, of passion or of crime. 
In the wreaths she traced a gallows, 

And, by 'wild'ring dreams enticed. 
Saw those blood-red fingers smiting 

A pure, white-browed marble Christ. 
When the throng dispersed, she lingered 

In the dim aisles all alone, 
Weeping o'er one slender finger, 

Whereon flashed a crimson stone. 
Then a deep, rich voice, whose music 

Seemed from out the arch to spring, 
Said, '• Where is the hand, sweet Neta, 

That once wore that ruby ring?" 
Came one moment full of terror : 

Till with silent, rapturous grace 
Turned she to her living lover. 

And beheld him face to face. 

*l> ^> ^> T> ^F^ 

" After deadly strife with Unez, 

Came oblivion, and then fear, 
When a sound of sea-waves lapping 

Smote upon his wakened ear ; 
And a dark- eyed Gipsy maiden, 

Watching near the prisoner, told 
How she found him bleedins:, faintinir, 

And through cnreed, with watch and srold, 
Bribed her comrades wild to spare him ; 

How his crushed and useless arm. 
For the sake of life, was severed. 

And the wound healed " by a charm f' 



THE CRIMSON HAND. 17 

How the shattered limb she buried, 

With its hand so clenched and cold 
They dared not tear the ruby ring 

From that clinging, dying hold. 
Through a long and weary journey 

She had guarded hira from harm 
To the cabin of their schooner : 

First love was the Gipsy's "charm." 
And to seek his native country 

Prayed the captive all in vain, 
For that wand'ring horde was sailing 

To a far-off home in Spain. 
But there rose a direful tempest, 

That had wrecked their timeworn bark ; 
And Mc Alpine, shoreward driven, 

By the breakers strong and dark. 
On a lonely Southern island 

Had been cast, and thus was found 
By a band of idlers cruising 

In the tropics, homeward bound. 
Such his tale. He heard the verdict. 

Saw the gallows, and must save 
One who wished him dead, and living . 

Would have laid him in the grave. 
Neta blessed the Gipsy rovers ; 

And that little dusky maid. 
Steeped in love's first sweet illusion, 

'Mid the coral garden laid. 
Underneath those Christmas garlands 

Soon their wedding troth was said, 
Where a holy benediction 

From the crucifix was shed. 



2* 



18 THE LIGHTHOUSE STAR, 

Chimed tlie wedding-bells a chorus, 

Through their dome of Christmas snow, 

When the fair bride came forth wearino; 
A white crown of mistletoe. 

5{i * J{i >Ji Hi 

Unez lives, forever banished 
From his home and native land, 

While a gallows still is standing, 

Where once waved the crimson hand. 



THE LiaHTHOUSE STAR. 

A BALLAD. 

A STARLESS skv, a moonless nio;ht, 

Long past the gloaming hour. 
And yet there is no beacon light 

Up in the signal-tower, — 
No flame to warn the ships from death. 

When on black waves they ride 
To monstrous jaws of rocky teeth 

Licked by a hungry tide. 

Christ ! the morrow's sun will rise 

To bless thy natal day ; 
Stay thou the storm's wild sacrifice 

This blessed night, we pray. 
Guide thou the barks of light bereft, 

And pity those who grieve 
For their beloved ones adrift 

This direful Christmas eve. 



THE LIGHTHOUSE STAR. 19 

For ten years gone, athwart the gloom 

Has blazed that beacon-star ; 
Where is it now, while signals boom 

Across the harbor bar ? 
It is a brave and steady hand 

That feeds their signal flame, 
And wondering groups along the strand 

Breathe yet no word of blame. 



A foot-path to the lighthouse stair 

Leads when the tide is low ; 
Across that pathway who would dare 

Through such a surf to row ? 
The stoutest seaman's courage quails ; 

No messenger to-night 
Can bring them word why Duncan fails 

To raise the beacon-light. 



Again that dismal signal booms 

Along a roaring sea ! 
Black as the night yon gaunt tower looms,- 

Where can the watchman be ? 
Some prate of illness. " Sailors, hark !" 

One gray -haired dame hath said ; 
" Ye ken the tower would no be dark 

Unless my bairn were dead ? — 



" A bairn to me, whatever betide, 
Though when the morrow come, 
One year ago he took a bride 
Unto his sea-girt home." 



20 THE LIGHTHOUSE STAR. 

'• Then where is she ? our ' lighthouse star/- 
Rose Duncan. — brave and true f 

There is a wreck outside the bar — 
The tower is kept by two." 

" Bide je !" she cried, in accents sad, 

" For je will ken to-morrow : 
Death from his duty holds the lad, 

And she is dazed with sorrow. 
No braver lass draws breath of life 

Than she, your seaside flower ! 
Right well ye named my laddie's wife. 

Star of your lighthouse tower." 

Some seek their cots to chat and smoke, 

Or sip their Christmas beer. 
A few rough tars and fishing-folk — 

Heedless of social cheer — 
Still linger where the storm-guns boom ; 

When — -past the midnight hour — 
Red spears of light split up the gloom 

About the sisnaal- tower. 

They scanned each other, sore amazed, 

Till cried one staunch old tar, — 
" A hero's hand yon beacon raised ! 

God bless our ' lighthouse star !' 
God bless her and her gallant mate ; 

There's something sore amiss 
To make the harbor light so late 

On such a night as this !" 
***** 
***** 



THE LIGHTHOUSE STAR. 21 

When morning broke, when ebbed the tide, 

And when the wind was laid, — 
As his old mother prophesied, — 

They found young Duncan dead ! 
From duty death alone had power 

That strong right hand to hold ; 
For on the rocks, beyond the tower, 

They found him, stark and cold ! 



The stair was climbed, the lighthouse reached, 

And there, near by the door. 
His " bonnie lass" lay, senseless, stretched 

Upon the granite floor. 
Ere night a wreck lay on the shoals. 

He went to save the crew ; 
But all were lost ! — God rest their souls ! — 

And Duncan perished, too. 



To watch for him his lassie stood 

Cut by the wind and sleet 
Till seething billows, tinged with blood, 

Had borne him to her feet — 
Not dead, but dying. Brave, true heart, 

He whispered in that hour, — 
" The night falls, darling, we must part ; 

Go, light the beacon-tower." 

She loosed a wreath of raven hair 
To shield him from the storm ; 

And when he died still held him there 
Against her bosom warm. 



22 THE LIGHTHOUSE STAR. 

Until, as from a billow's crest, 

These words came : " Lassie, hark ! 

Be faithful, brave, I cannot rest 
While yonder tower is dark." 

She left him — to the lighthouse sped. 

Climbed up its dizzy stair. 
And on the night, to rest her dead, 

Flung out the beacon's glare — 
Heroic strength ! — her truth to prove ; 

Then fell beneath a shock 
Of anguish for her dear dead love 

Out on the wave-beat rock. 

By night in tombs of darkness lost, 

The tower, at morning gray. 
Rose like a tall and sheeted ghost 

To haunt the winter day. 
The dark hair — loosed to shield his form 

Who died that Christmas e'en — 
Left all its blackness on the storm. 

And caught the snow-drift's sheen. 

Brave Duncan ! now thy rest is gained. 

That harbor light shall shine 
Until thy lassie's hand is chained 

By fetters cold as thine. 
When " falls the night," when high tides flow. 

It may be missing yet ; 
But then — the villagers will know — 

Their " lighthouse star" has set. 



HASHEESH VISIONS. 23 



HASHEESH VISIONS. 

Fiery fetters fiercely bound me, 

Globes of golden fire rolled round me, 

Jets of violet-colored flame 

From ruby-crested mountains came, 

And, floating upward, wreathed on high 

Like gorgeous serpents through the sky, 

To whose rich coils the stars of night 

Clung and became like scales of light ; 

A crimson sea before me blushed. 

To which ten thousand rivers rushed, — 

Ten thousand rivers, all of flame, — 

And as they hissing onward came. 

Their burning waters seemed to pour 

Along an opalescent shore, 

While, in that red deep, far away, 

A myriad opal islands lay. 

With eager, wistful gaze I turned 

To where their dazzling splendors burned ; 

With fearful struggles, stung by pain, 

I rent my fiery bonds in twain 

And madly (when my limbs were free) 

Plunged headlong in that lurid sea. 

Whose red and seething billows seemed 

To mock me as they hissed and screamed ; 

While tortured thus, scorched to the bone, 

I drifted on with ceaseless moan. 

Till near those opal islands cast, 

When (dreaming all my anguish past) 



24 HASHEESH VISIONS. 

I grasped a smooth and glittering shore 

In vain, then drifted on once more ; 

On, on, till countless isles were past, 

And then a boiling wave at last 

Spurned, flung me from its blazing crest, 

To be at least one moment blest, 

Upon an isle which shone for me 

The fairest in that wondrous sea ; 

But on its cool and polished shore 

My agony scarce ceased before 

This beautiful and long-sought goal, 

This El Dorado of my soul, 

For which I yearned with wild desire. 

Was thronged with skeletons of fire ! 

That danced around me, shrieked my name. 

And scorched me with their tongues of flame. 

Till (in unutterable pain) 

I prayed that lava sea in vain 

To bear me from a haunted land. 

To save me from the demon band. 

That seized me with a fiendish laugh. 

And cups of fire then bade me quaff". 

Until the withered flesh all peeled 

From my parched bones and left revealed 

A skeleton like theirs ! a shell. 

Red as the hottest flames of hell ! 

Then loud we laughed, and wide and far 

Rang out that fiendish laugh, "Ha, ha !" 

In every wave an echo seemed. 

Until the sea with laughter screamed ; 

The blazing billows leaped on high 

And roared their laughter to the sky, 



HASHEESH VISIONS. 25 

Whose star-scaled serpents from afar 

Hissed back a mocking laugh, " Ha, ha !" 

We tossed our flaming goblets up. 

And danced and laughed, till every cup 

Was drained, and still, though wrung with pain, 

We quafi'ed and danced and laughed again, 

Till, faint with agony, a chill 

Of horror through my frame did thrill. 

The fire-fiends left me doubly curst. 

Cold ! freezing ! yet consumed by thirst. 

I wore a form of flesh again. 

And cried for water, but in vain ; 

And then an icy slumber fell 

Upon me, till the gushing swell 

Of mountain torrents, in their strife, 

Awakened me to light and life, — 

To light and life, for now I stood 

Beside a cool, deep shaded flood, 

Upon a shore so passing fair 

Its beauty brightened my despair 

A moment, while the hope was nursed 

That I might quench my frantic thirst. 

Enchanting pictures ! bright and fine. 

Enamelled on my heart they shine, — 

That fresh, green shore, that clear, deep tide, 

Whose waves o'er rocks of sapphire glide. 

Until at last, with wildest leap. 

Into a gulf more broad and deep 

Than ten Niagaras swift they whirl 

O'er crystal spars and crags of pearl ! 

But, lo ! when on that moss-grown brink 

I stooped my aching head to drink. 



26 HASHEESH VISIOXS. 

And, sinking there a lotus-cup, 

Eaised it in trembling gladness up, 

My parching lips gave forth a groan 

To find the water turned to stone I 

A chalice heaped with sapphires bright, 

To mock me with their liquid light. 

Jewels a king might proudly wear. 

But which I cursed in my despair. 

And then, with bitter anguish, flung 

Back to the tide from which they sprung ; 

The lotus bloom I would have torn 

To atoms, but (as if in scorn 

Of my fierce rage, by some weird power) 

I found an alabaster flower, 

Whose leaves and stem with matchless sheen 

Of emerald shone superbly green. 

I climbed along the crags of pearl, 

To head the waters in their whirl, 

But when I bent in madness down 

To where the white spray, like a crown 

Of glory on the torrent gleamed 

(Though o'er my brow its moisture streamed), 

With lips apart that longed to feel 

A dewy freshness through them steal, 

Upon my parched and swollen tongue 

A shower of diamond gems was flung. 

Oh ! what were gems to one who yearned 

For water-drops, and would have spurned 

Their wealth, to sip the dew that sleeps 

Within the harebells' azure deeps ? 

Upon the shore again I rushed 

Where countless fruits in beauty blushed. 



HASHEESH VISIONS. 27 

Pomegranates, rare and ripe, and one, 

Whose rind was rifled by the sun, 

Revealed unto my ravished sight 

The crimson pulp. Oh ! what delight 

I felt, as quick, with throbbing heart, 

I tore it eagerly apart, 

Expecting then the fruity seed 

With red and luscious juice to bleed 

Like those which, at the far-off South, 

Distilled their sweetness in my mouth. 

Long, long ago, when as a child, 

By Hope and Love and Joy beguiled. 

My trusting heart had never grieved 

To find itself at last deceived. 

But in that strange enchanted rind 

No liquid sweetness did I find. 

Which (tempting, while it half concealed) 

A mass of rubies now revealed, — - 

Of royal rubies, flashing there 

To mock, and madden my despair. 

I plucked an orange, when, behold ! 

Within my hand it turned to gold ; 

And wheji from loaded vines I tore 

The purpled grapes, which there did pour 

Their honeyed juices on the ground. 

Clusters of amethysts I found. 

If in a desert I had been, 

Where gushing waters are not seen, 

Nor luscious fruits (to tempt in vain). 

Less terrible had been the pain 

Of my fierce thirst ; and as I cried 

For water, fair forms seemed to glide 



28 HASHEESH VISIONS. 

Beneath those haunted groves, who quaffed 

From crystal cups bright draughts, and laughed 

Derisive laughter, soft and clear, 

As they approached me near, — so near 

I almost cau2:ht their ^oblets bright, 

When swift they turned in sudden flight, 

And from afar pealed forth those swells 

Of laughter clear as silver bells. 

Then others came, more fair, who reaped 

The dripping vines, and gayly heaped 

Each one within a jasper urn 

Her stores of grapes, which seemed to turn 

Beneath their hands to sparkling wine. 

While useless gems they shone in mine. 

A vintage by a river's brink, 

Yet no one offered me a drink 

Of wine or water, and ere long 

The chorus of a vintage song 

Came stealing to me, whence those maids 

Had vanished 'mid ambrosial shades. 

In quick pursuit, I followed where 

Their voices rippled through the air, 

Till blind with anguish, cold as death, 

Chilled (by the south wind's balmy breath), 

Yet burnt by torturing thirst within 

(Fiercer than memories of sin). 

Beneath that lustrous summer sky, 

I lay me down and prayed to die. 

But vainly rose my mournful prayer, 

The " King of Terrors" came not there ; 

And sudden darkness, like a spell, — 

Appalling darkness, — round me fell, 



HASHEESH VISIONS. 29 

Which reft the earth of light and bloom, 
And steeped my soul in utter gloom. 
I started up : the sun had set, 
The torrent poured o'er crags of jet 
Its inky waters, and o'er all 
A black sky hung its funeral pall,- — 
So black the clouds that floated by 
Looked atoms rifted from the sky. 
Black barks before me then did glide, 
Whose sails were blacker than the tide, 
Peopled by wild and frantic ghouls. 
Strange skeletons, as black as coals, 
Who on those ghostly decks had met 
To quaff black blood from cups of jet. 
The land I found so bright and warm 
Was stricken by a scathing storm ; 
Its fruits and flowers, of late so fair. 
Hung now like ebon cinders there. 
And groves which erst were green as spring 
Looked blacker than the raven's wing ; 
So freezing cold the wind had grown 
I seemed within the frozen zone. 
And snow came drifting to the earth, 
Black as the clouds that gave it birth. 
I saw it all — though wrapped in night — 
Plainly as if revealed by light. 
That rayless, dense, unbroken gloom 
Was suffocating as the tomb 
To those who from long trances wake. 
And strive their coffin-lids to break 
(Discovered, when too late to save), 
Who slept, to wake within the grave ! 



3* 



30 BABY POWER, 

Their agony, though keen, is brief, 
But death came not to my relief. 
Upon that cold and dismal brink 
I stooped my head and strove to drink 
The murky waves, when through the dark 
Came gliding up a spectral bark ; 
I climbed the deck, where demons stood, 
And quenched my thirst at last, in blood! 
They pledged me in that draught accurst, 
And still I drank, to quench my thirst. 
Unmindful that our black bark swept 
To where those maddened waters leapt. 
Into that fathomless abyss. 
Until I heard them scream and hiss 
Within my ears, on, on we dashed. 
While 'mid those jetty crags loud crashed 
Our sinking ship— on, on we rushed, 
Till masts and timbers all were crushed, 
When, blind with blackness, 'mid the roar 
Of inky waves, I heard no more. 



BABY POWER. 

Six little feet to cover. 

Six little hands to fill, 
Tumbling out in the clover, 

Stumbling over the sill ; 
Six little stockings ripping. 

Six little shoes half worn. 
Spite of that promised whipping. 

Skirts, shirts, and aprons torn ! 



BABY POWER. 31 



Bugs and bumble-bees eatcbing, 

Heedless of bites and stings, 
Walls and furniture scratcbing, 

Twisting off buttons and strings. 
Into tbe sugar and flour, 

Into tbe salt and meal, 
Their royal baby power. 

All through the house we feel ! 



Behind the big stove creeping, 

To steal the kindling-wood ; 
Into the cupboard peeping, 

To hunt for " somesin dood." 
The dogs they tease to snarling. 

The chickens know no rest, 
Yet the old nurse calls them " darling,' 

And loves each one " the best." 



Smearing each other's faces 

With smut or blacking-brush. 
To forbidden things and places 

Always making a rush. 
Over a chair or table 

They'll fight, and kiss again 
When told of slaughtered Abel, 

Or cruel, wicked Cain. 



All sorts of mischief trying. 
On sunny days in-doors. 

And then perversely crying 
To rush out when it pours. 



32 BABV POWER. 

A raid on Grandma making, 
In spite her nice new cap, 

Its strings for bridles taking. 
While riding on her lap. 



Three rose-bud mouths beguiling, 

Prattling the livelong day, 
Six sweet eyes on me smiling, 

Hazel, and blue, and gray, — 
Hazel with heart-light sparkling, 

Too happy, we trust, to fade — 
Blue 'neath Ions; lashes darklincr. 

Like violets in the shade. 



Gray full of earnest meaning, 

A dawning lio;ht so fair 
Of woman's life beginning 

We dread the noon-tide glare 
Of earthly strife and passion. 

May spoil its tender glow, 
Change its celestial fashion, 

As earth -stains change the snow ! 



Six little clasped hands lifted. 

Three white brows upward turned, 
One prayer thrice heavenward drifted 

To Him who never spurned 
The lisp of lips, where laughter 

Fading away in prayer. 
Leaves holy twilight after 

A noon of gladness there. 



I 



SEA-DREAMS, 33 

Three little heads, all sunny, 

To pillow and bless at night. 
Riotous Alick and Dannie, 

Jinnie, so bonnie and bright ! 
Three souls immortal slumber. 

Crowned by that golden hair. 
When Christ his flock shall number, 

Will all my lambs be there ? 

Now with the stillness round me, 

I bow my head and pray, 
" Since this faint heart has found thee, 

Sufi*er them not to stray." 
Up to the shining portals. 

Over life's stormy tide. 
Treasures I bring — immortal ; 

Saviour, be thou my guide. 



SEADREAMS. 

Down on the seashore I found a shell. 

Left by the tide in its noonday swell ; 

Only a white shell out of the sea, 

Yet it bore sweet memories up to me 

Of a shore where brighter shells are strown, 

Where I stood in the breakers, but not alone. 

" A pearly shell from a southern strand, 

Hold it, my love, in thy whiter hand." 

His hand clasped mine, as I clasped the shell, 

His voice was drowned in the tidal swell 



34 SEA-DREAMS. 

But the words lost there come back to me 
From the colder brine of a northern sea. 
The waves may go and the waves may come, 
With their crystal veils and hoods of foam, 
But — sure as the ebb and the flow of tides — 
Love — that is, true love — forever abides. 

I found a white pebble down by the sea, 

Fair as the one that he gave to me 

When we stood in the twilight long ago, — 

One of two pebbles, as white as snow. 

We struck them together, and, lo ! there shone 

Soft flashes of light through the cloudy stone, 

A luminous splendor that lit the spar 

Till it shone like a flake from the twilight star. 

And then — oh ! so tenderly — breathing my name, 

He whispered, " My love, the electric flame § 

That gives to each pebble a burning heart 

While together, and leaves them so cold apart, 

Is like to the mystical light and heat, j 

The glow of our spirits, when thus we meet. I 

Let no other waken that subtle flame i 

In thy pure young heart till I come again." 

The southern pebbles would flash once more. 

Struck by a flint from this northern shore ; 

But the heart left dark, in that sunny clime. 

Will brighten no more on the shores of time. 

Out of the deeps of the still green sea 

I saw the moon rise royally. 

Wearing a blush on her pallid face, 

A glow from the day-god's warm embrace, 

Like the moon we watched on that southern strand 

While I stood with the white shell in my hand. 



SEA-DREAMS. 35 

But, lo ! as I watched her rise last night, 

Through a soft glamour of memory light, 

A ship that was sailing over the sea 

Came stealing between the moon and me. 

The moon was so red and the ship so pale. 

With its spectral shrouds and snowy sail, 

It came, as a shadow of to-day. 

To warn my yearning soul away 

With its ghastly sail and slender mast, 

From dreaming over a passionate past. 

Oh, the summer moons may rise and set 

By that shimmering sea where first we met 

While ships sweep on with their dumb white sails 

The tides and the moonlight tell no tales. 

I stood on a rock where the waters rave, 

And snatched some seaweed out of the wave, — 

A wreath of seaweed, frail and fair, 

I twined it amid my dripping hair, 

And thought of a far-off stormy day 

When together we stood in the blinding spray, 

When he crowned my brow with tendrils green, 

And whispered, — " Darling, my ocean queen !" 

But a great wild wave broke over me, 

And drifted that garland out to sea, 

Far away from the sandy beach, — 

Seaward, seaward, beyond my reach. 

We parted there, in the tidal swell. 

It is echoing sadly, " Farewell, farewell, 

I shall soon return, my love, to thee." 

He sailed in a strong ship over the sea ! 

pitiless sea ! lonely shore ! 

For he will return to me — nevermore. 



36 PAS ENCORE. 



PAS ENCORE. 

Over the Rhineland border, ere it gleamed with sword 

and lance, 
Came a brave young German, wooing a dark-eyed maid 

of France ; 
And he pressed her slender fingers, lost in his stalwart 

hand. 
Low whispering, " Come, love, go with me to my own 

Fatherland." 

Then redder flushed her olive cheeks than grapes upon 

the vine, 
Which (clear and pale), kissed by the sun, like clustered 

garnets shine, 
As, pointing to an old chateau beside the rushing Loire, 
She bowed her head upon his breast, and whispered, ^^Pas 

encore y 

He raised her downcast face and said, '' I have a home 

more fair, 
Where thou shalt reign a very queen;" she faltered forth, 

^' 3Ion pere .^" 
" Thou shalt return to him again : come, love. Je voiis 

adored 
'^ Toujours le votre^'' then she cried, " tojours le meme — 

mais^ pas encore 1^^ 

He kissed her lips, he kissed her brow, and from her lus- 
trous eyes 

He kissed the tears — warm tropic rain of Love's dark 
midnight skies ! 



PAS ENCORE. 37 

Then turned and left her. Both were brave : their sorrow 

who can know? 
The soldier gone to his Fatherland — the girl to that old 

chateau. 

* jH >K * % H< * 

Over the Rhineland border, amid shot, and shell, and 

flame. 
Through blood-red fields, where vultures swooped, once 

more the soldier came, 
A sabre-cut across his brow — yet heedless of its smart, 
He sought, through reeking ruins, for the darling of his 

heart. 

The old chateau was desolate, the old French noble dead, 

And to a convent's sheltering walls that lonely girl had 
fled. 

He knelt and prayed her go with him beyond the blood- 
stained Loire. 

Smiling, she said, '' We should be foes," then, weeping, 
" Pas encored 

Over the Rhineland border, on a crimson battle-plain. 
At last that dark-eyed maiden sought her lover 'mid the 

slain, 
And 'mid the slain she found him, but her white hands 

stanched the gore 
Upon his breast, while thus she prayed, " Bon Dieu, oh 

pas encore r 

Baptized in light, red battle-fields are starred with flowers 

again ; 
Baptized in joy, the heart may bloom ; to rapture, sprung 

from pain. 

4 



38 TWO WOMEN. 

And as the life-light glimmered in that soldier's eye once 

more, 
When she whispered " Do not leave me/' he answered 

^' Pas encore.'^ 



TWO WOMEX 



OxcE, in a multitude, I met a woman tall and proud, 

So fair my heart bowed down to her in homage 'mid the 

crowd. 
I asked her name — she was a '•' queen of fashion/' " a 

great belle," 
For both our sakes, that name, perhaps, 'tis better not to 

tell. 

Her beauty was a thing so rare words fail to paint its 

power 
As sullen lead to picture forth a gorgeous passion-flower ; 
I followed those alluring eyes, and thought not of the goal 
To which they led, or if their light flashed from a noble 

soul. 

The wit and eloquence let fall from her red lips to me 
Was like the dew of nightshade flowers unto a dizzy bee, 
While every thought, or wish, or hope, that grew beneath 

her smiles. 
Blushed into being, till love's deep was rich with coral 

isles ! 

In the lobby of the opera-house a fragile, sad-eyed child 
Sold violets, who, as we passed, cried, ^' Buy them, sir,'* 
and smiled. 



TWO WOMEN. 39 

" For your wife — she is so beautiful." My blood was all 

aglow J 
She laughed and throned the violots upon her breast of 



Then whispered soft, " They are so sweet." The gift ap- 
peared but mean, 

Bought from a beggar girl, to deck the bosom of my 
queen ; 

I watched them droop within an hour : when all the tale 
is told. 

You'll wonder that they lived so long above a heart so 
cold. 

And sometimes at the opera, and often in the street, 

I bought that poor child's flowers, because my lady called 

them " sweet," 
No Christian charity, alas ! its blessed dew distilled 
On the rank passion growth with which my very soul was 

filled. 

I marked not then the stately head was never once be- 
guiled 
Out of its faultless pose, to bend above that fragile child 
With word, or look of sympathy; for blindly, madly blest, 
I only saw a woman with blue violets on her breast ! 

I caught and kissed them, if by chance from that fair 

shrine they fell. 
Drifted to me — blue waifs of bliss — from her white 

bosom's swell ; 
Or from the rippling waves of hair that crowned her low 

white brow ; 
The scent of summer violets is sickening to me now. 



40 TWO WOMEN, 

One evening from a grand bazaar my lady swept, all 
dressed 

In shimmering silk of purplish hue, like to a wild dove's 
breast, 

And, as into her coach she stepped, I heard the flower- 
girl say, 

" Oh, buy these violets, lady sweet, this basketful, I pray !" 

The dewy clusters were upraised to catch the beauty's 

eye. 
*^ My mother is so very ill, they tell me she will die." 
The outcast's flowers were pushed aside — that haughty 

one exclaimed, — 
'^ You'll spoil my dress, you dirty girl ; you ought to be 

ashamed ! 

" So many beggars ! one can't stand to be forever bored." 
Was she the empress of my heart, the woman I adored ? 
" Drive on !" The child clung to the door : " Oh, lady, do 

not go." 
The horses moved, the little girl fell on the stones below. 

Among those scattered violets, dashed earthward like my 

dream, 
I raised her, wondering if all women are not what they 

seem ; 
That stately coach rolled on, and left a cloud upon my 

life. 
But silver-lined, for I rejoiced that she was not my wife. 

From the shadow of a doorway this scene before me 

whirled. 
Out of Love's consecrated niche I saw my idol hurled, 



TWO WOMEN. 41 

Of every noble attribute so utterly bereft 

I wondered why I had so loved the beauty that was lefl. 

A moment since her presence brought my soul that subtle 

spell, 
That nameless ecstasy, whose bliss earth's poets fail to tell, 
And now I whispered to the child, in accents hard and 

cold, 
"There is nothing you can envy that lady save her gold." 

Just then a pretty phaeton drove near the glittering store, 
Within it was a fair young girl I'd often seen before ; 
But then in contrast with my star no other one could 

shine : 
By that same contrast now she wore a loveliness divine ! 

For stepping lightly from the chaise with quick and ready 

grace. 
While charity's most holy light transfigured her young 

face, 
She ministered unto the child, who told her name and 

home, 
Was lifted in the phaeton : the girl said, " Will you 

come ?" 

I followed her, as in a dream, unto that lowly place : 

The mother and the child were saved — I found a holy 
trace 

Of noble deeds where'er she moved ; her mission was to 
bless. 

Such women light the path to heaven, and make the dis- 
tance less. 

4* 



42 LESSONS. 

Again Love came to me — disguised — until by chance one 

day 
I found his rosy wings beneath a domino of gray, — 
Sometimes called friendship ; then he shook away the soft 

disguise, 
And smiled at me — unmasked — from out a pair of saintly 

eyes. 

When through such holy windows the rays from loving 

souls 
Shine out on men, they are not often wrecked among 

life's shoals ; 
Lured from the harbor-lights of home, yet, while those 

loadstars burn, 
To love, and truth, and purity, they must at last return. 



LESSONS. 



Bright and warm through the windows at noontide, 

A flood of July sunlight came. 
Hills, orchards, and meadows stretched outward, 

With mid-summer glory aflame. 
Sandy — through with his lessons — had wandered 

From the orchard, away to the hill. 
While his poor, tired, worn little brother 

Yawned over the spelling-book still. 
In his fancy he must have been crossing 

The stile by the big apple-tree, 
*^ On" and " no" he spelt constantly backward, 

And persisted in calling " d" '' b." 



LESSONS. 43 

Oh ! it's weary work teaching you, Dunnie ; 

Why is it you constantly look 
Through the window and over the meadow, 

And everywhere — save at your book ? 
Then a sad little sigh came, half broken, 

A pair of soft, earnest brown eyes 
Turned back from their wandering outward, 

Along where the orchard path lies ; 
Grazed up to me, as he said, meekly, — 

^' Oh ! mamma, indeed I can't see 
How to teach what you know can be harder 

Than learning new lessons to me. 
I do try to spell, but the letters 

Get mixed, they're so like, I declare ; 
On the hill I would rather be playing, 

For you know, mamma, Sandy is there." 

" It is hard work for both of us, darling ; 

Come, spell it once more now, do try ;" 
But the brown eyes again played me truant. 

As he cried, — '' What a big butterfly !" 
His glance to the threshold I followed. 

And there, panting, sunflushed, and tanned. 
Stood Sandy, just down from the mountain. 

With a butterfly poised on his hand. 
It fluttered and flew through the window, 

Dunnie shouting — " That's good ! fly away ! 
It's awfully dismal and lonesome 

To stay in this bright summer day." 
Sandy laughed, cut a caper, and vanished ; 

And then, with a sorrowful look 
At the butterfly's track down the sunshine, 

My prisoner returned to his book. 



44 LESSONS. 

But a ripple of musical laughter 

Came breaking the silence, and there 
Sweeping gracefully over the casement, 

Blown about by the spirits of air, 
A beautiful bubble came driftins^ 

Like a drop from the rainbow deeps shed ; 
Slowly sailing, and slowly descending, 

It burst upon Dunnie's bright head. 
" Oh, it's jolly to sail like a bubble ! 

Jennie's blowing them, please let me blow ?" 
" Yes, directly. Oh. teaching is trouble ; 

Just spell this, and then you may go." 

Still he blunders. '• You're stupid; no answer." 

I wait, the white lids downward sweep ; 
The book falls ; the fair head droops forward ; 

My poor little boy is asleep. 
As I watch him — the dark eyes half open — 

He whispers, " Yes, mamma, I will ;" 
Then lisps the same letters — my darling ! 

In dreams he's misspelling it still. 

Stern conscience rebuked me as gently 

I laid that bright sleeper to rest, 
While the drops from his white forehead trickled 

By unconquered lessons oppressed. 
Pause and pity the little ones, toiling 

With books when they're longing to play ; 
Though ahead in the broad field of knowledge, 

Yet thy goal is still far, far away. 
Perchance it might be to thee nearer, 

If thou hadst not idled sometimes. 
Forgetting Time's deep knells to number, 

While listening to Pleasure's light chimes. 



LESSONS. 45 

What thou teachest is far from that dreamer 

As the lore of earth's sages from thee ; 
Light bondage doth gall the young spirit, 

Whose instincts are all to be free, — 
To sport, sing, and laugh in the sunshine. 

Deal tenderly, then, with thy boy, 
And, while dropping him hard grains of wisdom, 

Sow with them the bright seeds of joy. 

"Yes, mamma, I will," he says, dreaming: 

The little ones do what they can ; 
Never force the young brain, if you value 

Its strength for the life of the man. 
Lo ! I see in the past a child playing 

Alone under tropical trees, 
Who envies the birds round her singing, 

Because they can sing when they please. 
Again, with a task still unconquered, — 

Her young spirit all out of tune, — 
Ah ! alas 1 all too brief was that childhood ! 

World wisdom comes sometimes too soon. 



As I gaze through the past to that picture, 

And here in the present on this. 
In remembering my childhood, I pity 

My child, and while printing a kiss 
On his white brow, a low prayer I whisper, 

For prudence, and patience, and love. 
To fit that young soul for earth's knowledge, 

For infinite wisdom above. 



46 A GLOVE. 



A GLOVE. 

In a box of airy trifles — fans, flowers, and ribbons gay- — 
I chanced to find a tasselled glove, worn once on the first 

of May, 
How long ago ? Ah me. ah me I twelve years, twelye 

years to-day ! 
Alas I for that beautiful, fi'agrant time, so far in the pasfc 

away. 
And crowned with sweeter memories than any other May, 
Standing: alone, in a checkered life — it was mv weddinor 

day! 

The passing hours were shod with light, and their glowing 
sandals made 

Such sunny tracks that they guide me yet through a ret- 
rospect of shade. 

Through changes and shadows of twelve long years, down 
that love-lit path I stray ; 

The winters come and the winters go. yet it leads to an 
endless Mav. 

No leaves of the autumn have fallen there, and never a 
flake of snow 

Has chilled the path of those May- day hours that gleam 
through the long ago ! 

The flowering cherry's wild perfiime came stealing, bitter 

sweet, 
From vagrant breezes drifting heaps of blossoms to my 

feet ; 



" UNDER THE SANDS.' 47 

The flowers are dust, but the bees that bore their subtle 

sweets away 
Dropped golden honey on the path of that beautiful first 

of May, 
And the sweetness clings, for I gather it in wandering 

back to-day. 

Twelve years ! twelve years ! — a long, long life for a little 
tasselled glove ! 

Yet, I treasure it still for his dear sake who clasped with 
so much love 

The hand that wore, on that festal night, this delicate, 
dainty thing, — 

His forever! bound to him by the link of a wedding 
ring ! 

The glove is soiled and faded now, but the ring is as bright 
to-day 

As the love that flooded my life with light on that beauti- 
ful first of May. 



"UNDER THE SANDS." 



[Suggested by a notice of Sir Douglas Forsyth's account of the 
buried cities of the Grobi desert, in Eastern Turkestan.] 



Under the sands, under the sands ! 

Fair city of yore, not a vestige stands 

On the wide, wide waste of thy buried pride, — 

Of the beauty and splendor that with thee died. 

Great dumb hot billows were over thee rolled, 

Silently, silently, fold upon fold ; 



48 ** UNDER THE SANDS^ 

No coral wreatlis cling to thy crumbling walls, 
No sweet sirens sing in thy lordly halls. 
Of palaces under the deep salt brine 
The wild waves whisper, but not of thine ! 
queen of the desert ! what wizard spell 
Erst laid thee to rest 'neath that surgeless swell ? 
Thou'rt chained, by the desert's burning bands, 
A beautiful captive under the sands. 

Under the sands, under the sands ! 

Spellbound enchantress of tropical lands. 

No rustle of grass on thy tomb is heard. 

Nor chirp of cricket, nor carol of bird ; 

The lank lizard traileth its lazy length 

On the lonely graves of thy wasted strength. 

By the deadly scythe of the hot cyclone 

Was thy princely harvest of glory mown ; 

With a swift fell swoop did it lay thee low, 

Or, day after day, did the sand-waves flow 

Through thy courts, with their Eastern splendor rife. 

Stifling the tide of thy fervid life, 

Till thy pulsing hearts and busy hands 

Were thralled by the pulseless desert sands ? 

No answering voice from the past doth come, 

For the years, like the desert sands, are dumb. 

Under the sands, under the sands ! 

Of the things we love in life's desert lands. 

Some fall, some change 'neath the typhoon's breath 

(For life is a robber as surely as death). 

And the sands of time, be they flecked with gold. 

Over the heaps of youth's treasures are rolled ; 

Over its pleasures and passions they creep, 

Burying them stealthily, burying them deep 



*' UNDER THE SANDS^' 49 

Down life's dusty high-road at noontide we pass, 
Still dreaming of morn and the dew on the grass ; 
And wearing the laurels of favor to-day, 
We sigh for the daisy-chains woven in May. 
The mother of heroes, with fickle unrest. 
Oft yearns for the babies that hung on her breast, — 
For their crooning caresses and soft dimpled hands, 
Left in life's desert hid under the sands. 

Under the sands, under the sands ! 

Seekers of science, the wind's burning brands, 

And the centuries, leave ye no chart to unroll ? 

Each long yellow wave is an unwritten scroll. 

Ye have found a dead city, and now ye would read 

Her glory and downfall, her nation and creed ; 

The cycles of time must forever revolve. 

And leave us forever fresh problems to solve. 

Mark nature's fair lessons, — fields, blossoms, and trees, 

Are the wind-buried cities more wondrous than these? 

Unearth their lost tablets, translate their lost lore 

(Time's footprints lie deep on that desolate shore) 

And when ye have found them, ye workers and seers, 

Of what do they tell — save the march of the years ; 

Of the glory time gathers and leaves in the dust. 

Read nature's pure teachings of wisdom and trust, — 

The bright moth that springs from a lifeless cocoon, 

The dead grain uprisen in beauty so soon. 

Man's carved hieroglyphics a dead strength defines, 

Through God's ^' picture writing" divinity shines ; 

The lost builders live, while the work of their hands 

Lies, shrouded in mystery, under the sands. 



d 



50 REST, 



REST. 

The white-sailed sliips are sailing, sailing out to sea, 

The wearv winds come wailino:, wailins: in to me ; 

white-sailed shijis ! where do ye go ? 

winds ! why are ye wailing so ? 

The ships sweep outward, on and on, 

Out to the ocean, and are gone ; 

Lost to the sight 'mid earth and sky. 

The sobbing winds make sad reply. — 

•• They have gone to be tossed on the ocean's breast. 

We are wandering shoreward for rest, for rest." 

The whit€-wino:ed trulls are flvins:. flyinsr out to sea. 

The tide comes sighing, sighing, oh, so drearily ! 

Say, white-winged gulls, where do ye go ? 

tides ! why do ye ebb and flow ? 

Far, far away have the white gulls flown, 

The tide, creeping shoreward, makes moan, makes moan; 

Away where the storm-waves lash the decks, 

The sea-gulls find broken spars and wrecks ; 

" They will furl their wings on a sea-girt nest, 

We are sweeping shoreward for rest, for rest." 

Away, like the ships, forever, forever o'er life's wild wave. 
We are seeking and finding never, oh, never ! the bliss 

we crave. 
In the track of the sunset, soft and warm. 
The gulls fly seaward to wind and storm ; 



CHRISTMAS PICTURES. 51 

The white ships, seeking some brighter shore, 
Sail outward, and may return no more. 
restless heart ! there is storm and strife, 
There are wrecks on the treacherous sea of life ; 
Return, gull ! with thy storm-swept breast, 
Return, heart! unto rest, unto rest. 

My wayward thoughts are sailing, sailing over the rim 

Of blue where the day is paling, paling and growing dim. 

restless heart ! like the ebb and flow 

Of the tides do thy wild thoughts come and go,^ 

Still seeking in shadows that disappear 

That something divine which we find not here. 

The crown of to-morrow, so warm and bright. 

Usurped '^ by to-day" may be reft of light ; 

weary heart ! what is now is best : 

Cease thy longing and dreaming, to rest — to rest. 



CHRISTMAS PICTURES. 

Christmas-eve ! and all unruffled 

Dumb white spectral billows grow, 
Till the city's heart is muffled 

In a deep, wide pall of snow, 
Dead'ning clash of clang and clamor. 

All tKe sound of tramping feet. 
Folded by the Ice-king's glamour 

In a wondrous winding-sheet. 
Noiselessly his looms are weaving 

Snowy warp and crystal woof; 
Silently the winds are leaving 

Draperies on spire and roof. 



52 CHRISTMAS PICTURES. 

Laughing eyes that have been watching 

For the snow so long in vain 
Sleep, while elfish Frost is etching 

Pictures on the window-pane. 
Three bright little sleepers dreaming, — 

Dreaming of the Christmas snow ; 
Three brig-ht little stockino-s o-leamino; 

Near the chimney in a row. 
See a lady, softly gliding, 

By each fair young sleeper pause, 
Lest they wake and find her hiding 

Treasures brought by " Santa Claus," 
As she bends above the fairest, 

Wondering eyes are opened wide ; 
Comes a whisper : " Mamma dearest, 

I've had such a lovely ride." 
" You were dreaming." " Yes, I know it,- 

Such a pity, toOj because 
It was splendid fun to ^ go it' 

In a sleigh with ^ Santa Claus.' 
I was skating down the river, 

Far away from all the rest. 
Near the rocks where ice-spears quiver 

Up above its frozen breast, 
When a peal of bells came ringing — 

Silver bells — -in perfect time, 
Like a band of spirits singing. 

Soft they pealed a Christmas chime, 
Every moment louder, clearer, 

Till I saw a fairy sleigh 
Gliding towards me, — nearer, nearer, — 

Down the river's frozen way. 



CHRISTMAS PICTURES. 53 

As it passed me, on I skated 

Swiftly in its track, because 
The elf behind that gay team seated 

Was our dear old Santa Clans. 
How he laughed to see me follow ! 

When I kissed my hand he cried, 
We fly faster than the swallow ; 

Little one, come take a ride. 
Leave your skates upon the river ; 

There ! jump in ; but what you see 
Must be secret, kept forever 

Secret between you and me.' 
Onward, onward we were sweeping 

To an elfin land of rime. 
Where the winter fays were keeping 

Their enchanted Christmas-time. 
On the snow-flakes they were riding, 

Little dainty, white-winged fays, 
Down the slender ice-spears sliding. 

Chasing us in acorn sleighs. 
From the frosted tree-tops swinging. 

Countless throngs, with one accord, 
They were softly, sweetly singing, 

Hallelujah ! Praise the Lord ! 
Far away from wood and river 

Sped we, over fields of snow, 
While beside us, onward ever. 

Did that throng of fairies go, — 
Beautiful mid-winter fairies. 

With their crystal crowns and wings, 
Skimming o'er the frozen prairies, 

Swinging in their moonbeam swings. 



5* 



54 CHRISTMAS PICTURES. 

Down the boreal streamers sliding, 

Green, and blue, and violet fays 
In soft airy circles gliding, 

Clothed with splendor by the rays. 
And beneath that borealis. 

With its frozen domes and spires, 
Stood old Santa's mystic palace, 

Lighted by the northern fires. 
Countless Christmas-trees were springing 

From its wide, thick, icy floors. 
And the toys upon them swinging 

Would have filled ten thousand stores. 
Ah ! such lovely Christmas treasures, — 

Dolls, books, kites, such lovely things, 
Sugar-plums in bushel measures, 

Candy-fruit, and hearts, and rings. 
* You have robbed the world, Kriss Kingle,' 

All amazed, at last I said. 
How his merry eyes did twinkle. 

As he drolly shook his head ! 
' Bless the children, little dearies T 

Toiling in their caves of rime 
The beautiful mid-winter fairies 

Make these toys for Christmas-time. 
Then I heard the bright fays singing, 
^ Peace, good-will.' As Santa spoke, 
Christmas chimes came softly ringing. 

You looked at me, — and I woke." 
" Darling, thank our dear Redeemer," — 

And the lady sadly smiled, — 
" That you sleep a happy dreamer, 

That you wake a happy child ; 



CHRISTMAS PICTURES. 55 

For poor children^ sad and lonely, 

Santa has no toys to give ; 
They care not for Christmas, only 

Craving food enough to live. 
Listen, love. As I was coming 

Homeward down the crowded street, 
A ragged little outcast, roaming 

Through the snow with naked feet, 
Overtook me, and unfolding 

A pictorial, said, ^ I came 
To ask you ma'am,' — a print upholding, — 

' Please to tell me what's his name.' 
^ Why, that is Santa Claus.' ^ I never 

Heard of him.' ^ He comes,' I said, 
' With Christmas toys.' ' Oh I does he ever 

Bring the hungry children bread ?' 
' He might,' I answered, half in wonder. 

For the child had turned and fled 
Down the street, and vanished under- 

Neath a lonely cottage shed. 
Quick I followed, softly stealing 

Near a broken pane, and there 
To that torn, soiled picture kneeling — 

Placed before her on a chair — 
Was the little outcast, praying, 

Light from her sad, longing eyes 
Out beyond that dark roof, straying 

To her Santa, in the skies. 
And a sweet voice, full of sorrow, 

Rose beyond that wretched shed : 
' Please come, dear Santa Claus, to-morrow, 

And bring us two big loaves of bread,' " 



56 THE TOTAL ECLIPSE OF 1869, 

^' He can hear her, mamma, can't he ? 
Won't he go there when he comes ? 
She is starved, to beg from Santa 
Bread, instead of sugar-plums." 

Sleep again^ sweet little dreamer : 
There is one to plead her cause, — 

A human God, a kind Redeemer, 
More human than Santa Claus. 



THE TOTAL ECLIPSE OF 1869. 

A SPECTACLE in heaven ! — behold ! — there is no tax to pay ; 
Space is our boundless theatre, domed by the summer-day. 
How trifling all the trickery of human art appears 
By this gloom and glory meeting in the passing of the 
spheres ! 

A gloom upon the glory, and a glory in the gloom, 
Darkness that stifles summer songs, shuts up the sum- 
mer's bloom ; 
A glory flashing through the dark, a color without name, 
A dusky gem with heart of fire, girt by a rim of flame ! 

A spectacle ! — upon yon deep, unending azure scroll, 
A sun eclipsed ! as erst on high was one refulgent soul 
Blackened by sin, transformed, ere yet from thrones of 

light he fell, 
Spark of the eternal ! — quenched amid the lurid depths of 

hell. 



THE TOTAL ECLIPSE OF 1869, 57 

Along the sun's broad disk, behold ! an inky shadow 

creeps, — 
An ebon sickle down its fields of glory slowly sweeps, — 
Till a weird spectral pallor through day's glowing aisles 

doth glide, 
Like that which veiled the shuddering earth when Christ 

was crucified ! 

But now the universe was like a bright impassioned life, 
Pulsing with love and perfect bliss, with earthly splendors 

rife. 
On which some direful, crushing grief comes fiercely 

swooping down. 
Leaving it ghastly as the day, reft of his burnished crown ! 

Look up : unto the naked eye day wears a mask of jet. 
With rose and amber-beads around yon flaming dial set ; 
Look through a telescope, and see the jet to emerald 

turn, 
Throbbing with light, like green sea-waves' neath which 

volcanoes burn. 

Morn after morn the sun doth rise, eve after eve go down, 
God's smile unheeded — but, eclipsed, it minds us of his 

frown. 
Pale watcher, mark the livid mask all nature wears, and 

prize 
Yon orb, whose veiling leaves thy cheek as ghastly as the 

skies. 

Woe if the one who draws that veil should leave it thus, 

and blight 
Earth, beauty, bloom with ghostly shades, more terrible 

than night ; 



58 INCONSTANCY. 

Like to the leprosy of doubt, on souls that strive to prove 
The power revolving suns is chance, and not infinite love. 

Scoffer, behold the shadow pass ; dost thou deny His 

might 
Who rolls adown that pallid sky great tidal waves of light? 
Billows of glory ! breaking on the dim horizon's verge, 
While shouts from rapturous multitudes go up their golden 

surge 1 

Hearts, panting from a great excess of wonder, through 

pale lips 
Cry out with joy to see the sun unmask from his eclipse. 
Oh, let that blaze — one moment lost — our souls with faith 

inspire. 
Like those — ^bereft of Christ — baptized in Pentecostal fire ! 



INCONSTANCY. 

'^ My QUEEN, my love," the south wind sings. 
As on the Rose's breast 
He softly furls his balmy wings 
And sighs himself to rest. 
*' I've dreamed amid the jasmine bowers. 
Caressed the mignonette. 
But oh, my Bose, of all the flowers 
Thou art the sweetest yet." 

The crimson leaves about her heart 

Besponsive thrilled with bliss 
As she replied, ^' We meet to part, 

I cannot keep your kiss. 



INCONSTANCY, 59 

The east wind broke my dreams last night, 

He is so rude and chilly. 
As thus he sang, ^ Your love is light, 

I saw him kiss the lily.' " 



The Rose's breath the warm breeze quaffed, 

While answering thus her prattle : 
" The idle winds base slanders waft. 

You should not heed their tattle ; 
The lily is so cold and pale. 

You are so warm and bright." 
She listened and forgot the tale 

That broke her dreams last night. 



The. south wind sang the Rose to sleep, 

Sweet Rose ! so proud and silly, — 
And then he flew away to reap 

The sweetness of the lily. 
A saucy sunbeam passing there 

Kissed her awake and said, — 
" Thou hast a rival, pale and fair, 

As thou art bright and red." 



" Oh ! do not leave me all alone," 
The startled flower replied. 
The beam had fled ; with lazy drone 
A honey-bee replied, — 
^' Down in the lily's milky deeps 
The fickle south wind sings, 
The sunbeam, where the violet sleeps, 
Has furled his golden wings. 



60 INCONSTANCY. 

But I am here my truth to prove." 
" Yes," cried the Eose, bereft, 
" I'm very certain of your love, 
While honey dews are left : 
I want a love to cling to me 

When all my sweets are flown." 
" Tush !" quoth the honey-laden bee — 
And left the Rose alone. 



fickle love ! mourning Rose ! 

The south wind and the beam 
Have fled ; a colder breeze now blows 

Than waked thee from thy dream ; 
Who robbed thee last has told the truth, 

The drowsy, selfish bee-; 
Fresh blossoms mock thy fading youth 

And love's inconstancy ! 

" Oh, come, thou balmy breeze, and thrill 
My lonely heart again." 
The east wind answered, sneering still, 
And pelting her with rain, — 
" Your bloom is paling, for I heard, 
Where fresher flowers unfold, 
Your charmer tell the humming-bird 
That you were ^ growing old.' " 

faithless breeze ! fading Rose ! 

fate's most cruel wrong. 
When beauty's waning hours disclose 

That she has lived too long. 



THE PHANTOM BALL, 61 

Far better die adored, caressed, 

A queen by all approved, 
Than live to fade alone, unblest, 

And— worse than all — unloved. 



THE PHANTOM BALL. 

There's a staunch old Southern mansion near the broad 
Potomac River ; 
How long it has been standing there no mortal seems 
to know ; 
But the winds wail through the chimneys, and around the 
windows shiver. 
As if it had belonged to them a century ago. 

A look of solid grandeur, and of quiet antique glory, 
Marks the quaint peaked attic windows and the wide 
substantial door ; 
People say '' that house is haunted," but no weird or 
ghostly story 
Pales the sunlight on the threshold, falling brightly as 
of yore. 

Yet within those stately chambers witching memories are 
thronging, — 
Grleams of misty bridal vesture, love-light born of starry 
eyes, 
Shades of coffined brows transfigured, when, with eager, 
wistful longing. 
Patient spirits in their parting had a glimpse of Para- 
dise. 

6 



62 THE PHANTOM BALL. 

There are waifs of light and shadow from the dusk or 
sunny tresses 
Of ladies gliding gayly to the viol and the flute ; 
Broken vows and prayerful partings, clinging kisses and 
caresses. 
Left by hearts surcharged with passion, glowing lips 
now cold and mute. 

Changing scenes and changing faces, like a panorama 
passing. 
While the old clock — tall and spectral — points in warn- 
ing, as of yore, 
To the little flying minutes — Time's coral-builders — mass- 
ing, 
As milestones to eternity, the ages on life's shore. 

Left alone unto my dreamings, in that mansion old and 
haunted, 
As the midnight hour was sounding came sweet echoes, 
soft and low. 
From the ball-room up above me : it must surely be en- 
chanted. 
For footsteps there were gliding, — gliding swiftly to and 
fro. 



On it swept, my senses thrilling, and the solemn silence 
rifting, 
Till my pulses throbbed in rhythm with the pulses of 
the air, — 
A wave of magic melody my very soul uplifting. 

Till in fancy's wake I followed up the dark, old-fashioned 
stair. 



THE PHANTOM BALL. 63 

I knew they must be spirits, — a gay crowd of spectres 
dancing 
In that now moon-silvered chamber where they'd danced 
in bygone days, 
When it shone a brilliant ball-room, but, as then, bright 
lights were glancing 
'Neath the doors and through the key-holes — lo ! the 
room was in a blaze. 

To a key-hole observation then I stooped ; it was entranc- 
ing. 
Oh ! ghost-land, thy rich jewels and thy satins and thy 
gold 
Have a marvellous glamour, and thy ladies gayly glancing 
Through the minuet, a beauty that is wondrous to be- 
hold, 

And thy cavaliers too charming, with their spirit-land 
afflatus. 
To meet in nightly revels very often, heaven knows, 
Without some queer comparisons, which might affect the 
status. 
And unsettle the proud prestige of earth's self-approv- 
ing beaux. 

All so courtly in their deference to the fair ones, who 
maintained 
Such a queenly pose in waltzing, spite their undulating 
grace. 
And their flowing, powdered tresses, that no tell-tale dust 
remained 
On their partners' dark coats, telling of the ball-room's 
close embrace. 



64 THE PHANTOM BALL. 

Growing bolder and more eager, I arose, and, slyly creep- 



ing, 



All unnoticed by their ghostships, through a partly 
opened door. 
And past a lovely lady who, with Lafayette, was sweeping 
To a grand and stately measure through the menuet de la 



With our own immortal Washington, to lighter measures 



^g^ 



flyin- 

I danced a wild fandango, till some woman shrieked, — 
" x\way, — 
^' Thou art mortal !" I ignored her — even female gliosis 
are prying — 
But felt put out and defeated when the Frenchman 
cried, " Sortez." 

For a single human presence broke the spells of that weird 
meeting, 
They were severed by the throbbing of one restless 
human heart. 
As the rainbow-tinted bubbles, so beautiful and fleeting. 
Are all broken by the swiftness of the current whence 
they start. 

I beheld the head of Washington, around about me glanc- 
ing, 
With a thrill of terror noting his silk-stockinged limbs 
were lost ; 
Lafayette's head disappearing left his shapely legs still 
dancins:, 
And I dreaded the misfitting of somebody's glorious 
ghost. 



A ROSE. 65 

For the grand dames fell to pieces in the midst of their 
revolving, 
Jewelled arms and brows and bosoms, starry eyes, soft 
tresses, — all 
In a bright phantasmagoria flashing round me, and dis- 
solving, 
As I fled, with cries of terror, from that haunted danc- 



ing hall. 



A ROSE. 



A ROSE I cull for thee, one royal flower 

Blooming alone, in regal pride apart ; 
Summer's last breath and her last golden hour 

Nested together in its crimson heart. 
One moment to its leaves my lips are pressed, 

Thou'lt find the kiss because it comes from me ; 
One moment it has blushed upon my breast, 

And bears from thence a freight of love to thee. 



And where the pressure of my warm lip glows, 

Thrilling the blossom with a human bliss, 
A tear is gleaming, too, because the rose 

That comes from me cannot return thy kiss. 
Hard iron miles now hold our lives apart. 

Long leagues of ocean waves between us moan ; 
Go, rose, crowned with my love, unto a heart 

Thoul't find, as mine is left, alone ! alone ! 
e 6^ 



66 HELP, 

And when it comes to thee, all cola and crushed, 

The color dying on its crimson crest, 
Where'er the faded leaves are deepest flushed, 

Well wilt thou know that there my lips were pressed, 
And inward, where the golden petals shine, 

If lingers yet the incense of its breath, 
Thou'lt say, perchance, that one sad tear of mine 

Embalmed the sweetness of the rose in death. 

Oh ! linger not too long beyond the sea. 

For absence is a bitter, chilling frost. 
Ere roses bloom again return to me, 

Forever absent is forever lost. 
A spray of cypress shades this crimson flower. 

Flushed by its passing blush, its latest breath, 
The rose, to tell thee of love's living power. 

The cypress, that my love is unto death. 



HELP. 

Let us strive — every one — 
Towards helping each other 

Through a world where there's so much to do, 
And so much left undone. 
If we toil not together, 

Fellow-travellers and laborers too. 

Let us all understand 

We may lighten the burden 

Which e'en the most blessed must bear ; 
Lend a hand ! lend a hand ! 
If ye seek for the guerdon, 

The labor ye also must share. 



HELP, 67 

Think not of reward. 



But be ready and willing 

To help without summons or call ; 
Self and self-love discard, 
While God's mission fulfilling, — 

A mission of love unto all. 

There are burdens to raise — 
Burdens easily lifted — 

That sadden, and goad, and distress ; 
Words of kindness and praise, 
Unto helpless hearts drifted, 

May strengthen, and lead to success. 

Let us do what we can ! 

Life's rough places need smoothing 

For those who are weary or vexed ; 
Weak or strong, child or man. 
All need helping and soothing 

When thwarted, or sad, or perplexed. 

There are storms to be stilled ■ 
By kind words, wisely spoken : 

What we do may not all be in vain ; 
There are cups to be filled. 
And where bright links are broken, 

Perchance we may rivet the chain. 

Proud natures grow stern 

When too long they have striven ; 

Unaided, warm natures grow cold ; 
As we live let us learn 
There is help to be given 

That cannot be purchased with gold. 



68 A LEGEND OF THE LUCCIOLE. 

There are cities to build, 
There are flocks to be tended, 

While love has its missions divine ; 
Let all be fulfilled, 
And their memories blended 

Like the odors of wild rose and pine. 

Say not, ^' Lo ! we bind 
And bear burdens unaided.'* 

If through some darker life ye can weave 
Shining threads, ye will find 
When life's summer has faded, 

'Tis more blessed to give than receive. 



A LEGEND OF THE LUCCIOLE. 

On a night long ago. 

When the midsummer's glow 
Italia's land was enchanting, 

Down her deep Tuscan blue 

Eros silently flew. 
The heart of the hushed midnight haunting. 

Subtle sprite ! lo, he stole 

Through the senses and soul, 
Where lovers in rapture were meeting ; 

Where the same tale was told, — 

Always sweet, never old. 
Never worn with its endless repeating. 



A LEGEND OF THE LUCCIOLE, 69 

Then the night's fragrant airs 

And the white marble stairs, 
Flushed red with the roses down-falling, 

From bosoms of snow 

Unto lovers below, 
With lute or with mandolin calling. 

Every bloom held a kiss 

Or some message of bliss, 
Wafted down where the mandolins murmur ; 

As through June's golden gate. 

Where the honey-bees wait, 
Comes drifting a promise of summer. 

Tender sighs, burning vows 

Stirred the green ilex-boughs 
And acanthus coils, thrilling and warming 

The pale moonlit hours. 

And to wake the night flowers 
Love's amorous whispers were swarming. 

Quoth bright Eros — who came 
With his arrows of flame, 



The shield of the white moonlight cleaving. 

And in every love-note 

On the night-winds afloat 
A sparkle of amber-light leaving — 

^' In this sun-cradled clime. 
Where the cycles of time 

Are less warm than the passions I cherish, 
Every love-word that springs 
From the heart shall take wings. 

Not one spark of my fire shall perish." 



70 A LEGEND OF THE LUCCIOLE. 

Thus, 'neath Cupid's weird spells, 

Through Campanian dells, 
Lo ! the beautiful Lucciole, — 

Out of dark scented glooms, 

Where the night-jasmine blooms, 
Or adown the white moonlight, — sailed slowly. 

" Go, wander abroad," 
Cried the rosy-winged god ; 
** Let the bulbul thrill songs to your glory. 
Where her mystical scrolls 
Starry midnight unrolls, 
Go ! — illumine your wondrous story." 

Then they flashed through the air. 

From high palaces there. 
To cottage and hamlet most lowly, — 

Through each garden and grove 

Flashed these breathings of love, 
These mysterious lucciole. 

Every kiss folded up 

In the rose's red cup 
Leapt to life with its passionate yearning ; 

From the lily's white bells 

And the jasmine cells 
Love's whispers rose, winged and burning. 

And now, as of old, 

While hearts die or grow cold. 
Grim Time, in his merciless robbing. 

Never steals from the night 

Love's soft pulses of light 
Through the charmed heart of Italy throbbing. 



FOREVERMORE. 71 

And in climes of the sun 

Where great rhymers have spun 
Golden legends, heroic or holy, 

Fond lovers still tell 

Where the mandolins swell 
This tale of the lucciole. 



FOREVERMORE. 



AFTER ^'THE raven/' 



As I wandered in the gloaming, unto the sea-side roam- 
ing, 
Gazing westward, where the evening her golden banner 
bore ; 
Paths of twilight roses crushing, her royal banner flushing, 
The soft gray ashes strewn along a shadowy sunset 
shore, 
To the billows — never idle — chaunting vespers in their 
tidal, 
I whispered, " Shall we meet again beyond yon cloud- 
land shore ? 
Tell me, thou deep-mouthed ocean, with thy murmur- 
ous billowy lore." 
And the breakers, leeward rushing, sang softly, " Ever- 
more," forever evermore. 

ye surges upward springing, ever sighing, ever singing 
Sweet anthems, while the summer skies their blessings 
on you pour ; 



72 FOREVERMORE. 

ye green and crested surges, where your swelling beauty 
merges 
Into the fierce wild waves that shout and leap on high 
and roar, — 
Won by the storm's devices, to seek rich, rare sacrifices, — 
Why did ye hurl that iron ship upon a rock-bound 
shore ? 
Strangling a freight of human life ye never can restore ; 
One life was mine, — when shall we meet ? The waves 
sobbed, " Evermore," forever evermore. 

" Give me then," I cried, " some token of the promise 
thou hast spoken ; 
Interpret the deep meaning of thy wondrous hidden 
lore ! 
When his spirit had uprisen from its fragile earthly prison 
Did it wander to some mystic sphere beyond yon twi- 
light shore ? 
Our spirits cannot sever : he was mine and must be ever. 
With the starbeam on thy bosom, tell me, ocean, I 
implore ; 
Is my lost love awaiting me beyond yon purple shore ? 
The white surf, surging at my feet, sighed softly, '' Ever- 
more," forever evermore. 

Then I felt my whole soul yearning, to those sad-voiced 
waves returning. 
When unto me the shadow of that twilight star they 
bore ; 
Every fleck of shimmering glory traced a weird fantastic 
story, 
As erst for the astrologers, who read their light of yore, 



FOREVERMORE. 73 

Seers who passed the spirit portals and read to listening 

mortals 
Their destiny for good or ill in planetary lore. 
Be my seer, deep sea, and tell me, does the spirit life 

restore 
The love we feel eternal ? The waves sang, " Evermore," 

forever evermore. 

The western roses withered where the purple twilight 
gathered. 
And night upon his dusky plume the star of twilight 
wore ; 
Down inky pathways trailing swept sable shadows, sailing 
Like black-mailed phantoms silently unto an ebon shore. 
All the blazing constellations pledged the sea in bright 
libations, 
And the sea leaped towards their beakers until every 
billow bore 
Drops of overflowing splendor, as with music sad and 

tender. 
They chanted, " In yon spirit-land he waits thee evermore, 
forever evermore." 

Then adown the silence ringing came a subtle murmur 
bringing 
A joy unto my spirit it had never known before ; 
Down the milky way of heaven came that wondrous an- 
them woven 
Through its tangled web of glory, till the far-off 
sapphire shore 
Thrilled harmonious devotion to the pulses of the ocean, 
From the foam upon its breakers to its coral-shaded 
floor ; 
D 7 



74 CLEOPATRA. 

Through the spirit-haunted universe and to her heart's 

deep core, — 
Above, below, around me rang one answer, *' Evermore," 

forever evermore." 



CLEOPATRA. 



Queen of beauty, through all ages. 

Queen of love in storied pages, — 
Cleopatra, — star of Egypt, — blazing through the mists of 
time ; 

Down long centuries descending. 

Thy wild witcheries are blending 
With half that poets sing to us of glory, love, and crime. 

Through the battle's red wreck springing 

Hark ! that royal paean ringing : 
"Enchantress of the Nile!" beloved of heroes and of 
kings ; 

Grerm of a sumptuous power, — 

Alexandria's passion flower, — 
To Egypt's weird old ruin still thy mystic splendor clings. 

Queen of beauty ! crowned of nations. 
Fame still pours her bright libations 
To one whose witcheries were like the potent spells of 
wine ; 
Turned from triumphs rich with beauty. 
Heroes — drunk upon thy beauty — 
Tore off their laurel crowns to wear the myrtles plucked 
from thine. 



CLEOPATRA, 75 

Where the lotus blooms are sleeping, 

There are subtle memories steeping 
The scented deeps of Eastern gloom starred by their blos- 
soms pale ; 

Memories of one fragrant hour, 

When the breath of every flower 
Was lost amid the odors swept from off thy silken sail. 

And the harps tuned to thy glory, 

And the bards who sang thy story, 
Left a mystic echoed music to haunt the classic marge 

Of that far-off Eastern river. 

Where will linger on forever 
A shadow of the splendors trailed behind thy royal barge. 

Dark-browed sorceress ! subtlest woman. 
There was one most noble Roman 
Who mocked the wiles which erst enslaved Rome's purple 
royalty ; 
Who had shown thee to the million. 
His fair captive, — as Aurelian, 
The Assyrian queen, — but thou didst scorn to grace his 
victory. 

When paled thy star of destiny. 

When Egypt and Mark Antony 
Were lost to thee, the future was too dark to lure thee on ; 

Cleopatra! fairest woman, 

Too frail, too proud, too human 
To live with glory vanishing and love forever gone. 



76 NURSERY RHYMES. 



NURSERY RHYMES. 

Ring out, ring out, ye memory chimes, 

With your cadence sweet and low : 
Bring back to me my nursery rhymes 

From the haunted long ago. 
For oft when evening shadows lie 

Along the nursery floor, 
My heart still sings a lullaby 

To the little ones there no more. 

Rock-a-by, baby, rock, rock-a-by : 

Oh ! I miss the sweet unrest 
Of the wide-open, watchful, smiling eye. 

The dimpled hand on my breast. 
Rock-a-by, baby ! tender lay I 

infantine music lore. 
How I long for a lisping tongue to say 

In the silence, — " Pese sing it some more." 

Trot, trot to market and " Little Bo-peep," 

Till, too tired to laugh or hide ; 
For •' coachy and horses" they fell asleep 

To dream of that promised ride. 
" Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake," hand on hand. 

How they clapped them in baby glee ; 
Strong sons, fair daughters, around me stand. 

But my babies are lost to me. 



SA ILING— DRIFTING. 77 

crooning babble ! nursery lays ! 
From the long ago ye start ; 

Sweet music born of the baby days, — 

Duets of a mother's heart ! 
And strolling home through the twilight gloom, 

How I yearn to see again 
My little ones watching for me to come, 

With their faces against the pane. 

No Santa Claus now, no fairy chimes, 
No waking at Christmas dawn : 

1 was robbed by death, I am robbed by time. 

Till my babies are gone — all gone. 
But the past returns, as the present flies. 

And the nursery fires still glow ; 
While my haunted heart sings lullabies 

To the babies of long ago. 



SAILING— DRIFTING. 

Sailing on a sun-lit river, 
Happy, — for we were together. 
Willing thus to sail forever. 

Sailing seaward in the morning, 
Little clouds out westward scorning. 
Heedless of their silent warning. 

Early mists seemed snow-peaks looming 
Noonday clouds and darker gloaming 
Purple banks before us blooming 
7* 



05 



78 SAILING— DRIFTING. 

Sailing seaward, Cupid steering, 
Everything love's halo wearing ; 
Rippling river — ocean nearing. 

Gilded pennons outward flinging, 
Summer bird above us singing. 
Blindly to each other clinging. 



Drifting, drifting ! torn sails flying, 
Stormy petrels sadly crying ; 
Daylight in the westward dying. 

Summer-bird hath flown forever. 
Backward to youth's sunlit river, 
Broken masts beside me shiver. 

Parted from thee, tempest-riven. 
Helpless, drifting, shoreward driven, 
Darkness between me and heaven. 

Mighty rock ! the waters rifting, 
Snow-white dove through darkness driftino;, 
Helpless, hopeless souls uplifting — 

Skyward, where the waves are cresting ; 
Onward, fiercest billows breasting, 
Above the rock the dove is restino-, 



J?) 



■c:>> 



Upon the cross ; I follow singing, — 
" Ecce Dio," upward springing, 
Unto the Bock of Ages clinging. 



A MEMORY. 79 



A MEMORY. 

A MEMORY filled my heart last night 

With all its youthful glow ; 
Under the ashes, out of my sight, 

I buried it long ago ; 
I buried it deep, I bade it rest. 

And whispered a long " good-by ;" 
But lo ! it has risen, — too sweet, too blest. 

Too cherished a thing to die. 

In the dim, dim past, where shadows fall, 

I left it, but, crowned with light, 
A spirit of joy in the banquet-hall, 

It haunted my soul last night. 
One earnest, tender, passionate glance, — 

I cherished it, — that was all. 
As we drifted on through the mazy dance 

To a musical rise and fall. 

It rose with a weird and witching swell, 

'Mid the twinkling of merry feet, 
And clasped me close in a wild, strange spell 

Of memories bitter-sweet ; 
Bitter — because they left a sting 

And vanished : a lifelong pain ; 
Sweet — because nothing can ever bring 

Such joy to my heart again. 



80 THE COMET OF 1858, 

To one it was nothing, only a waltz ; 

To the other it meant no wrong ; 
Men may be cruel — who are not false — 

And women remember too long. 



THE COMET OF 1858. 

I. 

OHj whither art thou hast'ning in thy wild and wondrous 
flight, 

Fair stranger with the silver plume and panoply of light? 

Hast thou been sweeping ever thus along the fields of 
space ? 

Among the countless orbs on high hast thou no resting- 
place ? 

II. 
Thou art a mystery in the sky, as strange and undefined, 
And glorious, as a thought of God, within the human 

mind ; 
Bright and perplexing there, amid the knowledge of the 

soul. 
As those are, seen where yon calm stars their changeless 

courses roll. 

III. 
A fairy web of crystal light from night's high dome of 

blue 
Thy glory weaves, so delicate the stars look softly through ; 
A mist so radiant, as we gaze there lingers no regret 
That it doth shade the beacon lamps on heaven's high 

watch-tower set. 



THE COMET OF 1858, 81 

IV. 

One glory by another veiled, not lessened, as we trace 
The light of Grod's refulgent smile through the Redeemer's 

grace, — 
A veil of light so beautiful we kneel adoring there, 
And gazing up behold it stirred by every breath of prayer. 

V. 

Where art thou now ? for centuries, long centuries, have 

passed 
Since upon mortal vision beamed thy peerless beauty last ; 
And lo I ten thousand years may fling upon the past 

their gloom, 
Ere mid yon shining host again shall wave thy royal plume. 

VI. 

Didst spring up from the diamond dust of which the stars 

were formed ? 
Art thou a spirit star within the sun's caresses warmed? 
Or a fierce, fiery missile by the great Omniscient hurled, 
To crush and blot from yonder sky some sin-beclouded 

world ? 

VII. 

Perchance thou art thyself a world, peopled by spirits 

lost, — 
Souls doomed throughout immensity forever to be tossed ; 
Fair, fallen angels, who have lost their heritage in heaven, 
And farther still from God must now eternally be driven. 

VIII. 
Thou 'mindst me of that wondrous plant whose blossoms 

bless our eyes 
Once in a hundred years, — thou art the aloe of the skies ; 

/ 



82 TEMP US FUGIT—ISSO. 

Save that a myriad radiant years does seem a briefer time 
To thee, than mortal centuries, 'neath their clouds of grief 
and crime. 

IX. 

Thou 'mindst me of the burning hopes that sometimes 

wildly start 
From sorrow's night and flash athwart the darkness of the 

heart ; 
Mysterious and fantastic, not a bird-like hope that springs 
From youth's gay greenwood with the dew of freshness 

on its wings. 

X. 

Phantoms of hope ! that lure us on, and mocking bid us 

cling 
To some blest idol that the heart has worshipped in its 

spring,— 
Vainly ! as dreaming hearts like mine may worship thee 

and mourn 
(When thou art lost) 'neath starry skies of half their glory 

shorn. 



TEMPUS FUGIT— 1880. 

The days are cold, 

The year is old, 
Through the storm he drifts away ; 

A midnight chime, 

A throb of time, 
In our century old and gray. 



TEMP us FUGIT—ISSO, 83 

Between the chimes 
Of the Christmas times, 
What an age to a child it seems ! 
A long, long pause, 
While Santa Glaus 
Is the saint of his baby dreams. 

Through youth's sweet May 

Love hides away 
In the heart his subtle power, — 

A purple cup 

All folded up, 
Like the bud of a passion-flower. 

We feel the beats 

Of its pulsing sweets. 
And in yearning for the day. 

Whose brightest hour 

Unfolds the flower. 
It is long from May to May. 

Time's flight is slow 

When with love aglow 
All the coming years are thrilled. 

Days, long and bright, 

With the dreamy light 
Of a future unfulfilled. 

When the present glows 

Like an opening rose. 
While the past holds no regret, 

We dream and sigh. 

As the days go by, 
For a something brighter yet. 



84 TEMP US FUGIT—18S0. 

For which we yearn, — 

Delights that burn 
On hope's Eldorado shore. 

Love, riches, fame, 

A laureled name, 
Lure on through life's summer score. 

And oft we find 

Ripe grain to bind 
From the autumn's mellow yield, 

Rich household sheaves 

Love sometimes leaves 
In life's bounteous harvest-field, 

When children spring 

And around us cling, — 
Strong boys like the branches grown 

From a thrifty vine ; 

Girls pure, and fine, 
As the temple's polished stone. 

But one by one 

They seek the sun, 
And shadows round us grow. 

Till there's nothing left 

But a shining rift 
In the beautiful long ago ! 

Then years — less bright — 

Are swift of flight. 
As we near that goal sublime, 

Calm, pure, and blest, 

That perfect rest, 
Unstirred by the throbs of time. 



CHRISTMAS FAITH, 85 



CHEISTMAS FAITH. 

'^ Do you believe in Santa Glaus ?" 
To his little sister cried 
A bright-eyed boy ; there was a pause 
Ere the dainty girl replied, — 
" Of course I do, for mamma said 
Last Christmas he came through 
The chimney while we were in bed, 
And all she says is true." 
" Pshaw ! you are nothing but a girl. 
That's why you're humbugged so ; 
They get your small brain in a whirl 

With dolls and toys. I know 
A thing or two, if you'll keep dark, 

I'll tell you : it's such fun 
To outwit grown folks — such a lark ! 
You won't tell, little one?" 
" Tell what? I know he's true, because — " 
The boy said, " Stuff! old Smith— 
The preacher — calls your Santa Glaus 
^ A dear, delightful myth.' " 
" Maybe that's Santa's other name : 

Mamma says he has two." 
" He's just a humbug all the same, 
You little goosy you. 
It means — Now, Jennie, don't you tell ; 

I got the whopping book 
That teaches grown folks how to spell : 
Go get it ; you may look 
8 



86 CHRISTMAS FAITH. 

For myth — and it means just the same 

As nothing. It's all chaff 
About the stockings : Santa's name 

Is mamma. We can laugh 
At grown folks now. What mortal eye 

Has seen him wink and nod ?" 
" Noj — and we can't see through the sky, 

Yet all believe in God!" 
*• That's different, but old Santa's feet 

Fit square in mamma's shoes ; 
His voice, like hers, is low and sweet. 

Trust in him if you choose ; 
You are a girl — such nonsense tells 

So differently on boys. 
Who hears Kristkinkle's silver bells 

Or sees his sleigh of toys?" 
Then proudly rose the little maid. 

And — pointing far away 
To the blue heaven above them — 

Said, '' Christ came on Christmas day. 
We trust in all his names, because 

He loves us — he is true ; 
And, though you call old Santa Claus 

A myth, I'll trust him, too." 



GRECIAN POETRY VERSUS MODERN SCIENCE. 87 



GEECIAN POETKY VE R S VS MODEUN 
SCIENCE. 



" The startling information is given by a modern chemist of the 
possibility of preparing alcohol from quartz and flints," — Harper's 
Scientific Record (old number). 



There dwelt a youth in ancient Thrace, 

Whose voice and lyre entrancing 
Bewitched with song the human race, 

And set creation dancing. 
The gods and goddesses above 

Heard him in silent wonder ; 
Juno forgot to lecture Jove, 

And Jove forgot to thunder ; 
The sea-snakes heard and wagged their tails, 

The porpoise burst with pleasure, 
The fishes weighed it on their scales, 

And found a perfect measure ; 
The mermaids gathered round in flocks, 

And strewed his path with corals ; 
The syrens heard, and from the rocks 

Cast down their watery laurels ; 
The trees picked up their trunks and swayed 

About in measures mazy ; 
The rocks rolled round and danced and played 

In waltzes wild and crazy. 



88 GRECIA N POETR Y VERSUS MODERN SCIENCE, 

There comes a thrill down listening years 

Throughout creation ringing, 
Perchance the " music of the spheres" 

Still echoes his sweet sin2:inf]^. 
Now, Orpheus loved a maid who died 

The day they were united ; 
He rushed below to seek his bride, 

And Pluto's realm delighted 
By striking soft his " golden shell." 

I never have forgiven 
This seeking for his love in hell 

Before he searched through heaven. 
'Twas like a man to go there first, 

And scarcely worth remarking, 
But Tantalus forgot his thirst 

And Cerberus ceased barking. 
Things without motion swayed about 

While Ixion's wheel stopped turning ; 
The fire was stirred, but not put out, 

And Orpheus left it burning. 
The vulture even forgot to prey 

While listening to that lyre : 
Some creatures of the present day 

Might show a like desire. 
But truth must triumph. Lo ! a glance 

Our modern science merits, 
She says no wonder rocks can dance 

When they're possessed by spirits. 
A savant gives mysterious hints 

That modern quartz are leaking, 
And that the fiery hearts of flints 

AVith vinous streams are reeking. 



LIFE-PICTURES. 89 

Let modern humbug still increase : 

I fling with fierce defiance 
The gauntlet of poetic Greece 

At prosy modern science. 
I swear the strains of Orpheus' lyre 

Did cause the stones to frolic, 
And left them all with hearts of fire 

And nature's alcoholic ! 
shade of Bacchus ! see with scorn 

Thy purple glories flicker, 
When mortals, drunk on rye and corn, 

Press rocks for stronger liquor. 



LIFE-PICTURES. 

No. I. 

WINTER TWILIGHT. 

Hard it is, in bleak December, 

Looking up with tearful eyes, 
Through the gloom, — hard to remember 

Sunshine past and cloudless skies. 

Few hearts dream of summer's bloomino; 

While the snow our green earth shrouds, 
We forget, 'mid winter's glooming. 

Heaven is still beyond the clouds. 
8^ 



90 LIFE-PICTURES, 

Oft in hours of deep despairing 
We forget on One to call — 

Ever watchful ; even caring 
For the sparrows as they fall ! 

Oh ! when human hearts thus fainting 

In the valley of despair, 
For a taste of joy are panting 

Even as prisoners pant for air ; 

For one drop of comfort pining, 
As worn pilgrims in a waste, 

Where the hot, dry sands are shining 
Pine a cooling draught to taste. 

If our faith, God, be shaken, 

Pardon — for His sake who cried, — 
" Father, why am I forsaken T^ 
Faint with anguish ere he died 

Thou canst pardon mortal wailing. 
Hearts long fed on sorrow's dross, 

When Thy Son, so free from failing, 
Felt forsaken on the cross ! 

Hi * * * * 

Hark I the rain ! it makes me weary, 
Dripping from the dusky eaves ; 

Sighing, sobbing, cold and dreary. 
Like a human soul that grieves. 

Sadder sounds the sad rain's weeping, 
As from life the long dull years 

Drop away 'neath Time's hushed reaping, 
Every one more stained with tears. 



LIFE-PICTURES. 91 

As an autumn tree storm-shaken 

Drops its treasures, one by one, 
Each leaf darker — more forsaken 

By the south wind and the sun. 

With the cold, gray twilight gleaming, 

List'ning to the dreary rain — 
Half in waking, half in dreaming. 

All I've known of bliss or pain. 

As the scene of some past drama 

Memory painted, gliding slow. 
Like a mighty panorama, 

By me steals the long ago. 



No. II. 

CHILDHOOD. 



A fair and blithesome child, with loving, 
Trusting eyes and dimpled mouth, 

I behold in gladness roving 

Through the gardens of the South. 

Waving tresses simply parted 

On a forehead low and fair 
Sunny-haired and sunny-hearted. 

Sporting 'mid the roses there. 

In her heart no feelings waken, 
Save by hope or gladness stirred. 

Like perfume, from spice- trees shaken. 
By the rustling of a bird. 



92 LIFE-PICTURES. 

As the " angels' whisper" trances 
Sleeping infants till they smile, 

Even now poetic fancies 

Her young spirit do beguile. 

See ! her dolls are mimic fairies 
Feasting on a scented green, 

Where the dainty wild bee tarries. 
And May butterflies are seen. 

Mushroom tables wreathed with sorrel. 
And the wild-vines' tender curl ; 

Scarlet bells are cups of coral, 
Jasmine-leaves are plates of pearl. 

Lo ! a feast meet for Titania — 
Summer berries, fresh and bright ; 

Honey, sweet as heavenly manna, 
Drops of dew like liquid light, 

Buttercups, with sweetness filling. 
Golden goblets there to shine ; 

Honeysuckle tanks distilling 
Nectar-drops for elfin wine. 



Melody and warmth and glory 

Charm her childhood in that clime. 

As a wondrous fairy story 

Told in music-dropping rhyme. 

Yet amid such wealth of gladness, 

Idol of that sunny home. 
In her eyes a haunting sadness 

Shadows forth the gloom to come. 



LIFE-PICTURES, 93 

In the midst of mirth revealing 

Proud, strong feelings, deep and warm, 

As gray mists through sunlight stealing 
Do presage a coming storm. 

Vain, regretful grief presaging. 

From a source yet undefined, — 
Grief, which knows no quick assuaging, 

In a nature so refined. 

Dream on ! — while Joy, 'mid Southern flowers, 
Weaves for thee her runic rhyme. 

And moments drop to golden hours 
Through the mystic glass of Time ! 



No. III. 

SCHOOL-DAYS. 



Marvel ye at roses blushing 

Deeper in a Southern land. 
Or where tropic seas are gushing 

There to find upon the strand, — 

From old ocean's heart upheaving. 

Like bright thoughts, — the rarest shells ? 

Then, why marvel ? 'Mid the weaving 
Of the South's bewild'ring spells, — 

When poetic inspirations 

More intensely glorify 
Dreaming hearts, as constellations 

Burning in a Southern sky ! 



94 LIFE-PICTURES. 

Now behold a fair girl bending 
O'er her weary task in school, 

Thoughts of brighter things contending 
With the dry, detested rule 1 

See, with what an eager yearning 
In their earnest, wistful look, 

Her deep, tender eyes are turning 
From that dry, unlovely book, — 

Where, through fragrant isles of beauty, 
Summer chimes her music bells, 

The dull routine of school-room duty. 
Heightened by their breezy swells ! 

Where the springs of joy are flowing. 
Where the light of fancy plays. 

Golden grains of thought are growing. 
Growing for the harvest days. 

Where the honey-bees of pleasure 
Hum youth's buzzing, lulling rhyme ; 

In thy heart they store rich treasure, 
Ready for the autumn time. 

Where love strikes his lute, enchanted, 
Down in girlhood's dreamy glade, 

Lo ! thy memory shall be haunted 
With an echo serenade. 

Bright the golden grain may darken, 
Rain may spoil the honey store ; 

'Mid love's echoes thou mayst hearken 
To the dreary " nevermore." 



NOTHING TO EAT, 95 

Then, while yet in life's green meadows 

Sunny hours like daisies blow, 
Cull them, girl, ere wintry shadows 

Hide their blooming 'neath the snow. 



NOTHING TO EAT. 

Nothing to eat ! great God ! what a cry 

To go up from the heart of a city ! 
Circled with plenty, and splendor, to die 

Without love, without home, without pity. 
Starving ! — while Fashion is feasting in there, 

Feasting, dancing, — in reach of her call. 
Freezing 1 — while snow-flakes and icicles glare, 

With the glow from that sumptuous hall. 

"Don't beg, — go and work," repeated all day, 

Cruel words ! they were seared on her brain. 
"Feed me," she cried ; " I will work — let me stay. 

I can stitch, scrub," all pleading was vain. 
" A beggar to work for a lady so grand !" 

sweet Charity ! where shall we go 
To seek thee, when wealth shuts his royal, right hand, 

And fair children die out in the snow 1 

Rich dainties, and rare, costing marvellous sums, 
Heaped up there in her famishing sight. 

Starving ! — yet might have been saved with the crumbs 
That will fall from that banquet to-night. 



96 IN MEMORIAM. 

" Nothing to eat" amid plenty and waste ! 

dear Christ, at thy banquet, above, 
Of those thou hast bidden, how few there shall taste 

Here so wanting in brotherly love. 

" Starving !" they heard ; but the great door shut fast! 

In this wide world, oh where could she go ? 
Homeless, and friendless ! — unloved, an outcast, 

With ^' nothing to eat" but the snow ! 
The city was vast ; she turned to the east, 

Clutched a snow-drift — sank down ; in the light 
Of a heavenly banquet, fair girl, thou shalt feast, 

While they starve who are feasting to-night. 



IN MEMORIAM. 



A friend who sent me an album of pressed leaves and flowers from 
places of interest abroad. 



I HAVE sought through Memory's treasure, 

On the shores of " long ago," 
Royal argosies of pleasure. 

Barges freighted down with woe. 
Where the pirate, Time, abiding 

In the caverns of the past. 
All his booty has been hiding 

From the first unto the last. 



IN MEMORIAM. 97 

Every sweet memento bringing 

Of our friendship's sacred store, 
All the songs and laughter ringing 

Through that far-off Nevermore ! 
But the spring writes not in daisies 

All the rapturous sweets of May, 
Nor can twilight's purple hazes 

Tell the splendors of the day. 
Do low winds of autumn wailing 

Tell of sumptuous, fruity June ? 
Or a wintry crescent paling 

Of the radiant harvest moon ? 
Thus the highest measure ringing 

To thy greatness, now appears 
All in vain — as night birds singing 

To the glory of the spheres ! 



Fancy brings a summer glory 

To the blossoms culled for me, 
Bearing each some classic story 

Of bright lands beyond the sea. 
On the pansies from the palace 

Of the Borgias dew-drops shine, 
Purple-tinted as the chalice 

Of their treacherous festal wine, 
Where death oftentimes was bidden. 

And where murderous hands did stins: 
While they clasped, with poison hidden 

In the jewel of a ring. 
Frail sea-pinks of dainty fashion 

Wear sweet Desdemona's bloom. 
Ere the dusky Moor's wild passion 

Downward swept in vengeful gloom ; 

g 9 



O) 



98 IN MEMORIAM, 

Leaving blood-stains on a story 

Which doth still so subtly move 
Murder pales amid the glory 

Of an overwhelming love ! 
From the grand Rialto pealing 

To the dismal '' Bridge of Sighs," 
Dolce ocean-music stealing, 

Into mournful echo dies 
Where the south-wind, aromatic 

With voluptuous murmurs, calls 
To the royal Adriatic 

Lapping low on marble walls. 

Now almost a memory dwelling 

In my soul since thou wert there, 
I can see the blue veins swelling 

On her marble bosom fair. 
Ocean pulses, beating, toning. 

Every thought, where fancy free 
By its mystic deep is throning 

A dream city of the sea. 
Royal crimson tints come stealing 

Through this dead verbena's bloom, 
All the glow of love revealing 

That should spring from Juliet's tomb. 
Dust of lovers, too, may nourish 

Pale, sad flowers ; 'tis meet that these 
On their ruined hearts should flourish 

Abelard and Eloise. 
Starry, ghostly clusters paling 

With a love outlived, — of all. 
Earth's sad things the saddest, failing 

O'er the past to weave a pall. 



IN ME MORI AM, 99 

Where regrets, like vultures swooping. 
Feed on pleasures that have been, 

Hopes and joys like white doves trooping 
Where love's myrtle once was green. 

There's a tinge of glory clinging 

To laburnums, almost pale. 
That were culled for me, erst springing 

In Chamouni's far-off vale. 
An Alpine morn is blushing 

On these faded immortelles, 
I can hear the dark stream rushing 

Where the icy torrent swells ! 
While I stand in rapture gazing 

Down a dizzy Alpine pass. 
Where in matchless splendor blazing. 

Shines the wondrous Mer de Glace. 
Where ten thousand rainbows, fleeting 

From the storm-clouds through the air, 
In this sea of ice all meeting, 

Have been bound and frozen there ! 

Seven fragrant bay-leaves, gathered 

From the seven hills of Rome, 
Keep their fragrance still, though withered 

Ere they crossed the ocean's foam. 
Rich aroma they are giving. 

Such as Italy distills. 
And now, whilst thou art living 

On the everlasting hills. 
Leaf and blossom, frail and tender. 

From that distant classic shore. 
Shed their fragrance and their splendor 

On my heait forevermore. 



100 A SUMMER IDYL. 



A SUMMEK IDYL. 

Pictures of sunset, yester eve, 

The still lake underlying, 
So cliarmed us we forgot to grieve 

For the sweet summer dying. 
sunny noons 1 warm suns set 

Where crystal waters quiver ! 
Days without shadow, save regret 

That they are gone forever I 
lambent skies, so pure and bright, 

While realms beyond draw nearer ; 
Our rapt souls wonder, steeped in light, 

If Heaven itself is fairer ! 
long sweet drives through leafy ways 

Of forests dim and olden. 
Where softly steal the subtle rays, 

Turning their green shades golden ! 
Through dewy lanes, where summer came 

To blazon her sweet story 
In cardinal tufts of scarlet flame, 

And mark a path of glory ; 
Down long, bright miles of golden-rod, 

Born of the Day-god's shadow. 
From sunbeams sown along the sod, 

A nimbus round the meadow ; 
Where flash pale marguerites, starry-eyed, 

Beside their sister daisies. 
With violet colors, streaked and pied, 

Clust'red in purple mazes ; 



A SUMMER IDYL. 101 

Down where the sweet wild roses thrill 

Faint fragrance to the rushes, 
And regal lilies, paler still, 

In contrast with their blushes ; 
Unmarked, the hours, like golden darts, 

Through summer vistas flying. 
Till green leaves turn their bleeding hearts 

To tell us they are dying. 
The summer smites through sunny clouds 

Her treasures green and tender. 
To fit them for their crimson shrouds 

And autumn's funeral splendor. 
matchless eves ! your glories sweep 

So low where twilight closes 
Her purple gates, yon crystal deep 

Looks heaped with cloud-land roses. 
And, while I gaze, night's Rembrandt shade 

Falls where the red is waving. 
Till sun-flushed views, dissolving, fade, 

To moonlight's soft engraving. 
summer friends of vanished days, 

So calm, so blest, so fleeting. 
When all have gone their separate ways. 

Where next will be our meetins: ? 
Perchance before another year 

Shall bring us summer's blessing. 
In chains of friendship woven here 

Some dear link may be missing. 
Fresh childhood, youth, maturer age, 

Swept off" by Death's dark tidal. 
Might leave, alas ! one clouded page 

In this, our summer idyl. 
9* 



102 ANNO, DOMINI 1SG9. 

Old Time will bind with icy cbain 

The blue lake's dulcet murmur, 
And cold storms chant a wild refrain 

Where sang the sweet voiced summer. 
But memory sails through sparkling waves, 

And drifts on waters glowing, 
With sunset fires our path she paves 

Out to the westward rowing. 
dreamy scenes of joy and love, 

My soul in beauty steeping. 
Your pictures live as treasure trove 

In Memory's holy keeping. 
The songs we sang still steal to me 

From out a mystic gloaming ; 
Ferns wave their plumes, wild-flowers I see 

Through tender vistas blooming. 
Friends of one fleeting summer-time, 

'Mid falling leaves we sever ; 
But in my heart, as in this rhyme, 

I hold you fast forever. 



ANNO DOMINI 1869. 



"The night is far spent, the day is at hand." — Romans xiii. 12. 



Watchman, along the wards of Time, 

Now tell us of the night. 
Hushed is the midnight's mournful chime. 

We wait the morning light, 



ANNO DOMINI 1869. 103 

The dawning of a finite morn. 

The birthday of a year ! 
One more from life's brief span is shorn, 

The infinite draws near. 

Watchman, within Time's lighthouse tower, 

The stars give unto thee 
No sign of God's mysterious power 

Hid in the years to be. 
As well in boundless steeps of space 

Or soundless deeps below. 
To seek the whirlwinds' hiding-place 

Or fountains of the snow. 

Beneath the glorious blaze of Mars, 

How faint the glow-worm's gleam ! 
How pale beneath a shower of stars 

Ten thousand fire-flies seem ! 
boastful watcher, fainter far 

Thy knowledge in His sight 
To whom our sun is but a star, 

Our stars but dots of light. 

Sailor, beneath life's stormy sky, 

Lost years have left for thee 
Treasures amid the wrecks that lie 

In Time's deep silent sea ; 
Where hide false hearts and faithful ones — 

Love, hate, joy, anguish — all, 
Like gold and gems and skeletons, 

O'er which the salt waves crawl. 

Wand'rer along life's desert waste, 
The palms rise far away 



104 ANNO DOMINI 1S69. 

O'er living fountains — wouldst thou taste ? 

Be patient, labor, pray, — 
Toil on, though 'neath life's burden bent. 

Scorched by sin's burning sand. 
Faint not — " the night is wellnigh spent," 

Infinite " day at hand." 

Soldier, upon Time's battle-ground 

Tarry not 'mid the strife, 
Where spoils of sin too oft have crowned 

The victories of life ; 
Where worshippers of Mammon meet 

Be thou no blind adorer ; 
Press on, and gild thy banner sheet 

With " Or A ET Labor A." 

Who bears unscathed that motto bright 

Through strife of woe or sin, 
Through the dark hours till morning light. 

Life's victory shall win ; 
Who bears it safe from stain or rent 

'Mid storms and wrecks shall stand 
Triumphant through " the night far spent, 

The eternal day at hand !" 



CENTENNIAL HYMN, 1876. 105 



CENTENNIAL HYMN, 1876. 

A HUNDRED deep-mouthed cannon boom, 

A hundred snow-white aloes bloom, 

A hundred battle-standards loom, 

Waving over the century's tomb, 

Over the glory and the gloom, 

Of mortal time and mortal doom ; 

Gone where the finite disappears. 
Where death to the infinite nears — 
Past the grave of a hundred years. 

A hundred red libations pour 

Where on our rich Pacific shore 

The countless centuries of yore 

Left the bright secrets of their lore 

In traceries of golden ore ; 

A nation's wealth — forevermore ! 

" Eureka" on her brow she wears, 
A golden crown she proudly bears, 
To grace the tomb of a hundred years. 

A hundred sweet-voiced choirs sing, 

A hundred hallelujahs ring, 

A hundred fragrant censers swing, 

The while a nation's heart doth spring 

With high resolves to meet and cling 

Unto the right, while centuries fling 

Their time-tossed freights of hopes and fears 
Ashore, where the infinite nears — 
Past the grave of a hundred years. 



And let each loyal freeman say 
More than a hundred prayers to-day ; 



106 CENTENNIAL HYMN, 1S76. 

Pray for the nation's honor ; pray 

That it may never pass away 

In foolish boasting and display, 

For lo ! ye see with sore dismay, 

The fiend dishonor mockins: leers, 
Where glutted luxury struts and sneers 
At the humble birth of this hundred years. 

Hundred years of a nation's life, 
Stirred with glory, marred with strife, 
Scarred with the bullet and the knife, 
With eager pulsing fervor rife, 
Strong in the newness of its life, 
Weak in its elements of strife. 

Stand firm, ye patriots and seers. 
Or Freedom's stars will set in tears 
Before another hundred years. 

A hundred chimes peal loud and long, 
A hundred bells with iron tongue 
Tell of a nation proud and strong ; 
God save its fierce progressive throng, 
God shield the weak and guide the strong 
Away from bloodshed, hate, and wrong, 
From vain ambition's hopes and fears, 
To loyal truth, and love, that wears 
One glory through a hundred years. 

Shout loud hosannas to the skies. 
To One whose ever-waking eyes 
Keep watch while nations fall or rise. 
Who marks the foolish and the wise, 



DEAD. 107 

Who gives us faith that glorifies, 

And love, that as it lives or dies, 
Exalts us to immortal spheres, 
Or leaves us lost and disappears. 
Lost ! as this mortal hundred years. 



DEAD. 

IN MEMORIAM PROFESSOR S. F. B. MORSE. 



Stat Magni Nominis Umbra. 



Thrill it down the electric wire, 

Far and near, to town and mart ; 
Flash that word in prisoned fire 

Through the world's enlightened heart. 
Unto every swarming nation 

Let your sad, brief message go — 
Swift and voiceless lamentation — 

Through the earth a throb of woe ! 
Where the pallid north reposes. 

Where the avalanche is born ; 
Whisper it unto the roses 

Blushing round the " Golden Horn." 
Send it south from Scotia's mountains — 

From her eagle's misty nest — 
To the spray of Persian fountains. 

Breaking on the bulbul's breast. 



108 DEAD. 



From the Alpine torrent seething 

Thrill it — dumb amidst their swell — 
To the amorous zephyrs breathing 

Through Italia's "golden shell." 
Go where spring her pale bloom nurses ; 

Flash it down the Russian steeps 
To red Vesuvius, muttering curses 

By Campania's purple deeps. 
From the arch that spans the river 

Where Niagara's anthems rise 
Let your mournful message quiver 

To the dismal ''bridge of sighs," — 
To the royal Adriatic 

Venice on her ocean throne, — 
And through spice-groves aromatic 

Southward to the torrid zone ! 
He has written us a story 

On the earth in pulsing lines 
From our northlands, bleak and hoary, 

To where the blue Marmora shines. 
Through the deep track of the ocean, 

Flashing past the coral isles, 
Viewless, voiceless, without motion, 

Thrills his fame down countless miles 
On to Oriental Cairo, 

Past that waste where Egypt flings 
Her glory from the tomb of Pharaoh, 

A gauntlet unto living kings — 
Where broods her ancient sphinx, abashing 

Modern problems to the last. 
He sends a present wonder, flashing 

Defiance at the stony past ! 



DEAD. 109 

Men of every faith and nation 

Honor, love, revere, admire 
One who sought not adulation 

When he chained the electric fire ; 
Who, discouraged and defeated, 

Bore it with a patient grace ; 
By no boastful pride elated, 

When he conquered time and space. 
Faithful spirit all undaunted, 

Toiling, undismayed, for years. 
Till along the wires enchanted 

Grreetings joined two hemispheres ! 
Then, all earthly praise despising. 

With one holy, prayerful thought. 
His fiery servant thus baptizing : 

" Mark ye what the Lord has wrought !" 
Fervent hallelujah springing 

Breathless down the electric vein ! 
Mighty mind 1 those wires are winging 

Now through earth one sad refrain : 
" The master's dead !" — their wail is flying — 

" Ye shall see his like no more !" 
North wind sobs to south wind dying 

On the Byzantian shore ! 
Down the iron vein it shivers, 

Potent, fervid, burning stream ! 
On through forests, deserts, rivers. 

Passing time and wind and steam ! 
Subtle, flameless, harmless fire. 

The wail of nation down it springs 
So silently that on the wire 

Wild birds perch and plume their wings. 



10 



110 OWL IN CHURCH. 

He had lived a «:reat ma2:ician 

In the dark and heathen age ; 
Lights that scatter superstition — 

Faith and science — call him " sage." 
Sage and hero, loved of nations, 

Lo ! thy dauntless soul has found 
The lightning's mystic habitation. 

Where its lurid bolts are bound ! 
Couldst thou send a messasre thrillins: 

Earthward, it would be once more 
" Eureka !"'—'' On ! your task fulfilling, 

In God's name, Excelsior !" 



OWL IN CHURCH. 



[In the autumn of 1874 a small gray owl was observed sitting in a 
niche above the organ of the Episcopal Church, greatly to the amuse- 
ment of the congregation.] 



Fronting us all, 

In a niche of the wall. 
As if proud of his lofty station, 

Like a monk in a cowl 

Sat a little gray owl 
Looking down on the congregation. 

Hymns and chants as they rose 

Failed to stir his repose, 
A grave mien to the holy place suiting. 

Merely looking surprise 

With his solemn, round eyes. 
He heard them all through without hooting. 



OWL IN CHURCH. HI 

His feathers he shook, 

And a questioning look 
On this wise he cast at the people, 

'• You're high church, 'tis true, 

But I'm higher than you, 
For my screeching I do in the steeple. 

"If by dropping in here 

Once a week ye appear 
Thus cleansed from all outward pollution, 

How clean I must be. 

Living always, ye see. 
In the top of this pure institution !" 

He glanced through the pews, 

As if trying to choose 
A few from the many, 'anointed, 

With charity — freed 

From ritual creed (?) 
I thought that he looked disappointed. 

Quoth the wise little owl 

In his modest gray cowl, 
" What grand dressing !" and then, slyly winking, 

" It would be orthodox 

To put more in the box 
And less in the pews, I am thinking. 



Judging men from aloft. 
As the righteous do oft. 

And women— Oh, owl, have compassion ! 
For the sees of our church 
Would be left in the lurch 

If its aisles were forsaken by fashion. 



112 OWL IN CHURCH. 

Of our creed justly proud, 

We respond very loud, 
By holy zeal gravely excited, 

And yet look innocent, 

As if "us sinnei*s" meant 
Not ourselves, but some race more beniorhted. 

Let paid choirs screech. 
Let the dear clergy preach, 

Don't hoot at them up in the steeple ; 
It's too high a perch 
To tell " tales out of church," 

And might frighten away outside people. 

Beware how you chat 
To the hawk and the bat ; 

Church gossip, returned with due culture, 
Brings so much to boot 
Tou won't know your own hoot. 

And may find yourself changed to a vulture. 

It is not orthodox 

To peep into our box 
And take notes underneath your gray cowl 

Of who gives and who don't. 

And we hope that you won't, 
Or we'll call you a meddlesome owl. 



THE NIGHT HAS COME. 113 



THE NIGHT HAS COME. 

The night has come, when I may sleep, 

To dream, perchance, of thee. 
And where art thou ? Where south winds sweep 

Along a southern sea. 
Thy home a glorious tropic isle, 

On which the sun with pride 
Doth smile, as misrht a sultan smile 

On his Circassian bride. 

And where the south wind gently stirs 

A chime of fragrant bells, 
While come the waves as worshippers, 

With rosary of shells. 
The altars of the shore to wreathe. 

Where, in the twilight dim. 
Like nuns, the foam-veiled breakers breathe 

Their wild and gushing hymn. 

The night has come, and I will glide 

O'er sleep's hushed waves the while, 
In dreams to wander by thy side 

Through that enchanting isle. 
For, in the dark, my fancy seems 

As full of witching spells 
As yon blue sky of starry beams 

Or ocean-depth of shells. 

Yet sometimes visions do becloud 

My soul with such strange fears. 
They wrap me like an icy shroud 

And leave my soul in tears. 

h 10* 



114 THE NIGHT HAS COME. 

For once metliouglit thy hand did bind 

Upon my brow a wreath 
In which a viper was entwined 

That stung me — unto death ! 



And once within a lotus-cup, 

Which thou to me didst bring, 
A deadly vampire folded up 

Its cold and murky wing, 
And springing from that dewy nest 

It drained life's azure rills. 
That wandered o'er my swelling breast 

Like brooks through snow-clad hills. 

Yet seemed it sweeter thus to die 

There, in thy very sight, 
Than see thee, 'neath that tropic sky, 

As in my dreams last night ! 
For lo ! within a palmy grove. 

Unto an Eastern maid 
I heard thee whisp'ring vow^s of love 

Beneath the feathery shade. 



And stately as the palm was she. 

Yet thrilled with thy wild words, , 
As its green crown might shaken be 

By many bright-winged birds ; 
And, 'neath thy smile, in her dark eye 

A rapturous light did spring. 
As in a lake soft shadows lie. 

Dropped from the rainbow's wing. 



THE NIGHT HAS COME 115 

No serpent from the wreath did start, 

Which round her brow was twined, 
Nor in the lotus' perfumed heart 

Did she a vampire find ; 
For humming-birds were nestled there, 

By summer sweets oppressed, — 
A type of her whose raven hair 

Was floating o'er thy breast. 

While thus I dreamed, all cold and mute 

My warm, glad heart had grown, 
Like some fair flower or sunny fruit 

Turned by the waves to stone ; 
For o'er the treasures of my soul 

There swept a blacker tide 
Than e'en the dismal floods that roll 

O'er Sodom's buried pride. 



But passed away that vision dark, 

x\nd now once more I come. 
In slumber's slight, fantastic bark, 

Unto thy island home. 
And thou art waiting there for me 

To weep upon thy breast. 
As on the shore the troubled sea 

Doth sigh itself to rest. 



My wreath seems now of orange-flowers. 

And from the chaplet pale 
Do glow-worms drop in shining showers 

To weave my bridal veil. 



116 GOLD. 

The stars — God's holy tapers — light 
The altars of the shore, 

And on us doth the solemn night 
A benediction pour. 



GOLD. 

A WALL STREET LYRIC. 

Gold, gold, gold! 
.How fiercely it surges and sweeps along, 
A sordid hurricane swift and strong ! 
How quickly it rises, and falls, and swells ! 
On eaa*er hearts rincrino; out human knells, 
Swaying and saying like funeral bells 

Told, told, told ! 

Rush, rush, rush ! 
And men that have bought, and men that have sold. 
Rush recklessly into this race for gold, — 
A passion-race turning a greedy mill, 
Whose cruel wheel grinding and breaking, still 
Crashing and dashing, forever will 

Crush, crush, crush ! 

Greed, greed, greed ! 
How fierce is the clutch of its demon hold ! 
How it clamps the heart in a vice of gold 
Till the blood runs fmilt through the startino^ veins ! 
How it scorches and fevers and maddens men's brains ! 
Craving and saving, they scorn 'mid their gains, 

Need, need, need ! 



LOVE AND REASON. 117 

Gold, gold, gold! 
How it haunts the senses and lures the soul. 
In form of a mocking, glittering ghoul, 
Whose beckoning fingers do gleam and glare, 
Whose merciless eyeballs still flame and stare, 
Defying, and crying out everywhere, 

Hold, hold, hold ! 

Grain, gain, gain ! 
How it fills the heart with a thirst for more ! 
How it spurneth poverty from the door, 
And rusts the beautiful shield of light 
By Charity grasped in her heavenly right. 
Who — cheated, defeated — findeth her might 

Vain, vain, vain ! 

Gold, gold, gold ! 
Hark ! high or low to its magical ring. 
See, how quick to the gleaming heaps they spring 
As it rises, falls, as they buy or sell ! 
Hear how wildly those strong men curse and yell, 
As if the fare to heaven or hell 

Were bought or sold ! 



LOVE AND REASON. 

VoUNG Love went sailing without fear 

Upon a lotus-leaf. 
Though Reason said, ''Pray let me steer. 

Or you will come to grief." 



118 LOVE AND REASON. 

Then laughed the saucy god and cried, 
" You look too grum and blue. 

Go, walk along the river's side, 
I'll paddle my own canoe." 



So Reason, plodding on the shore, 

Watched Love's frail shallop floating, 
And thought, " Though walking is a bore, 

It's very risky boating. 
Hallo ! young imp, you will be wrecked ; 

Your bark is very frail." 
But Love sang gayly, " I expect 

To have a jolly sail !" 



'' Keep off the rocks and cataracts. 

They oft beguile a stranger." 
Quoth Love, " A truce to stupid facts, 

I rather like the danger. 
The stream is smooth, the sky is clear. 

Why do you come to measure 
The crystal deeps through which I steer 

To boundless seas of pleasure ? 

" I'd rather brave life's tidal shocks. 

And strand amidst its corals. 
Than anchor off these granite rocks 

To hear you preach of morals." 
Thus, down the stream did Cupid drift. 

His hand at Reason kissing, 
To where those sunlit waters swift 

Over the rocks went hissing. 



LOVE AND JEALOUSY. 119 

A warning scorned, a danger spurned 

Of which he saw no token, 
The lotus-leaf was overturned, 

The fairy rudder broken. 
Sang reckless Love, " A wreck or two 

Is not to me distressing. 
My wings are dry, I've saved my bow ; 

There's not an arrow missing." 

" You are a wicked little elf," 

Said Reason, darkly frowning. 
" What matter if you harm yourself? 

I'd laugh to see you drowning." 
Quoth Cupid, with a cunning wink, 

" You know your words are treason ; 
For half the world would rather sink 

With Love, than swim with Reason." 

Then, rising from his sinking craft. 

Love sent an arrow flying 
At Reason's heart, and mocking laughed 

While to his mentor crying, 
" Don't grumble if I give you pain, 

This strife is all your seeking." 
Sighed vanquished Reason, " Shoot again," 

And kissed the wound while reeking. 



LOVE AND JEALOUSY. 

When the sunflushed roses render 
Fragrant homage unto June, 

Cupid, nestling 'mid their splendor, 
Sang, " My heart is out of tune, 



120 LOVE AND JEALOUSY, 

And I crave a new sensation." 

Then the pale pinks round his head 
Changed to crimson and carnation, 

And the white musk roses red. 
Smiling, sighed the god, " I'm weary 

Both of conquest and repose, 
And declare it's rather dreary 

Seeing things couleiir de rose; 
Beauty ceases to delight me, 

I am sick of everything. 
And would like a snake to bite me, 

Or a honey-bee to sting. 
One success might give me pleasure, 

' Hide and seek' I'd like to try. 
My best speed and strength to measure 

With that hydra, Jealousy." 
Now the summer breeze, that tattles, 

Witli this reckless banter flies 
Where, upon a bed of nettles, 

Rests the monster, who replies,— 
" If defeat be recreation. 

Bid the small god plume his wing ; 
If he craves a ' new sensation,' 

It awaits him in my sting." 
Zephyr flew to Cupid, humming 

Softly in his drowsy ear, 
" Hark ! grim Jealousy is coming. 

Rise up quickly, he is here." 
Light as foam upon a billow 

Love arose, for he had seen 
Ghastly shadows on his pillow 

Turning all the roses green. 



LOVE AND JEALOUSY. 121 

While a harsli voice whispered, sneering, 

^' Hide and seek as you propose ; 
Life won't bore you by appearing. 

While I'm near, coideur de rose ! 
Vipers will not be required. 

And a bee you need not bring ; 
You shall feel the pain desired 

In the fierceness of my sting." 
" I am not afraid," quoth Cupid, 

" You can neither hold nor bind, 
And are too slow and stupid 

My sweet hiding-place to find." 
Then he shot an arrow, crying, 

" Guide my flight, bright little dart !" 
And flew ofi", pursuit defying, 

To a maiden's sinless heart, 
Safe within this blest seclusion 

Till a surly voice near by 
Whispered, " Love is a delusion 

Held apart from Jealousy!" 
Now the maiden's heart was wounded 

By the green-eyed monster's sting. 
And poor Cupid cried, — confounded, — 

As he drooped his aching wing, 
" Pray, whose pinions did you borrow, 

And why cannot you be seen ?" 
" I ride often on your arrow. 

And invisible the green 
Of the armor I am wearing," 

Quoth his rival. " You will find 
Where your wing is furled, despairing, 

I am never far behind, 



11 



122 LOVE AND JEALOUSY. 

For I wake when you are sleeping. 

And am subtle as the light. '* 
Then to sighing and to weeping 

Straightway fell the vanquished sprite, 
Sadly sobbing, " While this settles 

My defeat, let me propose 
That you stay among the nettles, 

While I'm pillowed on a rose. 
If by chance we're thrown together 

In the future, let us part, 
And not strive with one another 

For the empire of a heart. 
Let me be with pleasure sated, 

I will sneer no more at bliss. 
Having surely overrated 

^ New sensations,' — such as this.'^ 
*' Though my power you have derided," 

Growled his foe, " till time shall cease 
We can never be divided. 

We will never dwell in peace. 
I have marked the crowns of pleasure 

By your silly vot'ries worn, 
And have grafted at my leisure 

Upon every rose a thorn. 
Human hearts must sweep between us. 

Bearing off their passion-scars. 
Love's bright heritage from Yenus 

Brings the curse of strife from Mars ! 
We can make one contract, reaping 

Its rewards. — If you should see 
That I am quiet, listless, sleeping, 

Fan your fires and let me be. 



LOVE AND AMBITION. 123 

But should you grow sluggish, deeming 

Love hath safety in repose, 
Be my sting unto your dreaming 

What the thorn is to the rose." 



LOVE AND AMBITION. 

I. 

A MAN upon a sunny beach. 

With summer skies above him. 
Strove through a lover's art to teach 

A fair young girl to love him. 

He wooed her with a winning tone, 
The dark eyes outward wandered ; 

He said, " I love thee — thee alone," 
She smiled and sighed and pondered. 

Then sadly, as a mourning dove. 
Thrilled out, with subtlest meaning, 

" I've reaped the golden sheaves of love. 
And will not stoop to gleaning." 

He flushed and whispered, " Spare me sneers I 

The fleeting love I've given 
Another, as a flame appears 

Unto the stars of heaven. 

Compared with that now thine — all thine, 

So perfect, pure, and human. 
By waves that flow and stars that shine, 

I love no other woman !" 



124 LOVE AND AMBITION. 

" Swear not by tides that come and go, 
Or skies that change to-morrow," 

She sighed ; " for love, with ebb and flow, 
Might 'whelm my life in sorrow." 



Quoth Cupid, " I have done my part.'* 
Ambition sneered, " She's dreaming. 

I have his mind, you have his heart ; 
She's true, but he is scheming." 



II. 

Again, far from the sunny beach, 
That faithless man is wooing ; 

He left a love within his reach, 
Ambition's lure pursuing. 

He wooes a woman proud and cold 
As Alpine pass, that glitters 

With rainbow light ; but for her gold 
He wears those icy fetters. 

A bartered heart, still unrepaid 
For all love's ceaseless yearning ; 

And she who bought it fears the maid 
To whom his heart is turning. 



Dream on, fair one, beside the wave 
Or in the sunny meadow. 

Thy lover once, is now a slave. 
His life is all in shadow. 



TWO LOVERS. 125 

That heart for which a price was paid 
Back through the past is reaching, 

Still loving, longing for the maid 
Who listened to his teaching. 



TWO LOVEKS. 

A SEA-SIDE STORY IN THREE LETTERS. 

No. I. 

KocKAWAY, June 5, 186- 

Dear Grace, — You hear I am a belle, (?) 

And ask if it is true. 
Inquire about my lovers — well, 

Of several, only two 
Are worthy of your notice, dear, 

Or of my lazy pen. 
So I will sketch — as they appear 

To me — two different men : 
As different as a strong, bright stream 

That catches on its way 
The azure sky, the golden beam, 

To wreck in shining spray. 
Is from a lake so deep and clear 

The mirrored stars that lie 
Within its breast seem scarce more near 

Than those within the sky. 
The first — a drawing-room Apollo, 

With such a classic face ! 
Papa declares his heart is hollow, — 

I won't believe it, Grace. 
11^ 



126 TWO LOVERS. 

He drives me out and sends me flowers. 

We swim, dance, play croquet ; 
Life wears a crown of golden hours 

At dear old Rockaway ! 
Of Saratoga I am tired. 

Where all the girls are frantic ; 
To dance and flirt and be admired, 

Give me the broad Atlantic ! 
And beaux — but not a retinue ; 

For moonlight by the sea. 
One charming man, or maybe two, 

Is quite enough for me. 
To hear sweet nonsense is no crime, 

When whispered by a beau ; 
But turn about, one at a time, 

More I find quite de trop. 
And such a name ! — Lord Claude Le Eoy 

My favorite name, too, Claude. 
Jack says — but Jack's a lawless boy — 

His lordship is a fraud ! 
These grown-up brothers always croak. 

Jack's good and true, but then 
To please him I can't love a poke, — 

One of your quiet men. 
He says I'm playing with a bubble, — 

It may not be the first ; 
But then I own 'twould bring me trouble 

If one so bright should burst. 
His lordship speaks with such an air 

Of gems for me reset, 
And whispers that ''A brow so fair 

Should wear a coronet." 



TWO LOVERS. 127 

I prate of riches as a snare, 

Of love as a refiner ; 
Yet once I said^ '' You are the heir?" 

" No," he replied, '^ a minor," — 
And laughed aloud : I checked a sigh, — 

^' Merely a younger son ; 
But elder brothers sonietimes die, 

And I have only one." 
" A heartless wretch !" I hear you say. 

Dear Grace, he only joked, 
And all in such a charming way, 

I could not feel provoked. 
He is so grand, his form and size 

Such manly strength asserting, 
My heart inquires, with grave surprise, 

Am I in love or flirting ? 
I like to dress and flirt and dance, 

But from the sad waves learn 
For one sweet glimpse of true romance 

And real love to yearn. 
Adieu ! too long this rhyme has run ; 

Sleep veils my drowsy sight. 
I'll write you of the other one 

Some future time. Good-night. 



No. II. 



EocKAWAY, June 25. 



Dear Grace, — Strange things have come to pass, 

And both my beaux are changed ; 
One more a lover, while, alas ! 



The other is — estranged. 



128 TWO LOVERS. 

Yet once again my pen I take 

Where it was dropped, 'tis better ; 
Thoiigli hearts may change and hearts may break, 

Why break a sea-side letter ? 
Sometimes I like the rushing brook. 

With all its changes, best ; 
But when into the lake I look, 

My heart is more at rest. 
For Allan Graem is calm and cold. 

And silent as the lake ; 
Upon my heart he has a hold 

I do not care to break. 
When I am flirting he looks stern, 

So stern ! he must despise 
My life. I fear him and yet yearn 

To read within his eyes 
A shadow of the grave rebuke 

That clouds his love, as far 
Within the lake a granite rock 

Lies shadowing a star. 
I am so gay, he is so calm. 

My thought to his ascends : 
I am the fountain, he the palm. 

Yet we are only friends. 
I know he loves me ; but such love 

Is like the fire that glows 
Within a mountain, while above 

Are heaped eternal snows. 
In passing them my heart would lose 

Its warmth, — as wise, alas ! 
'Twould be in silken robes and shoes 

To climb an Alpine pass. 



I 



TWO LOVERS. 129 

We met one starless, moonliglit night, . 

When phosphorescent streams 
Made all the slumb'rous billows bright 

With weird, fantastic dreams. 
I said, " How dark the waves would be 

But for their flashing sheen !" 
" It is the darkness of the sea 

That makes its glory seen ; 
Yon silver fire the waves may spurn, 

And fling upon the shore 
Its mystic splendor, which will burn 

Apart from them no more." 
His voice was deep, his calm, proud eye 

Looked darkly down on me, 
" I'd rather be the light and die 

Than yonder cold, deep sea," 
I said and laughed. " Then let me be 

The ocean in its might, 
And thou forevermore to me 

A changeless crown of light (?)." 
I hummed a waltz. He sighed, '' Bright bird, 

'Waiting the tamer's hand. — 
Of golden cages we have heard, 

And of a silken band." 
I answered, " But in taming, you 

Would not adopt that style?" 
Smiling, he whispered, " Very true," — 

He has a wondrous smile. 
" A tender bird should be caressed. 

You must not break its wing ; 
And with the frost upon its breast 

It might forget to sing," 



130 TWO LOVERS. 

I said. He looked into my eyes 

And asked, " Is Lord Le Roy 
Your silken tamer ?" In surprise 

I said, " He would decoy 
His captive gently, and divine 

How best it might be won. 
Not leave a petted bird to pine 

And sicken for the sun." 
Scarce from my lips these words had fled 

When, in a freezing tone, 
" I might have known your taste," he said, 

Bowed, turned — I was alone. 
The coldness feared, despite his smiles, 

Of haughty eye and brow. 
What was it to the icy miles 

Stretching between us now ? 
Remorse I felt, regret, and pique. 

Yet could not make amends. 
Lest he might think I wished to seek 

A closer tie than " friends." 
Papa and Jack both ask me, " Why 

I've split with Allan Graem ?" 
" Because he's hateful," I reply. 

Both give me all the blame. 
It matters not, my heart is proud. 

And ever since that night 
Has kept its oath ; for then I vowed 

To flirt with all my might. 
I've waltzed as if there was no joy 

But waltzing in this life ; 
And — waltzing — promised Lord Le Roy 

That I would be his wife. 



TWO LOVERS. 131 

My head was near him when I heard 

The question ; felt him press 
Me nearer, and I spoke the word — 

The short but binding " Yes." 
We paused a moment in the dance, 

Like giddy butterflies, 
When, looking up, I caught a glance 

From Allan Graem's eyes I 
Love and despair, contempt and hate. 

Were struggling there to break 
The chilling calm — I knew too late 

The glory of the lake. 
But sparkling streams are more my style, 

Whatever is, is best ; 
And so I dance and sing and smile. 

And try to think I'm blest. 
A starry diamond, pure and white, 

Upon my finger gleams ; 
But Allan Graem's eyes by night 

Are haunting all my dreams. 
Forever turned from me away 

The eyes I used to fear ; 
God grant that on my wedding-day 

They may not come too near ! 
Mamma is radiant at my lot. 

Jack laughs — he's full of fun — 
And says, " Remember, Claude Melnotte 

Was but the gardener's son !" 
And like Pauline, would I be grieved 

To lose a titled name ? 
No ! I could love and be deceived, 

And still love Allan Graem. 



132 Tn^O LOVERS. 

Le Roy will come for me to-night 

To walk upon the strand ; 
I wish he could not claim the right 

To hold and press my hand. 
I did not" mind the flirting part, — 

That was a different thing, — 
But wish he'd give me back my heart 

And take his costly ring. 
My heart he holds not, but my hand 

He has a rioht to claim ; 
While I would change his silken band 

For chains with Allan Graem. 



No. III. 

EocKAWAY, July 15. 

Dear Grace, — Once more I take my pen, 

But in a different mood, 
To praise one hero, — not two men,— 

One noble, brave, and good. 
After that walk upon the strand, 

The next day, all alone, 
I wandered where a point of sand 

Euns seaward, — where the moan 
Of the incoming tide might lull 

My heart, — where I might brood 
With nothing save a white-winged gull 

To break the solitude. 
I ventured rashly out too far, 

And climbed a gTanite block; 
Hio'h tides sometimes submer^^e the bar 



O' 



And break above the rock. 



TWO LOVERS. 133 

But I felt brave, the tide was low, 

Time flew unheeded by ; 
I heard the breakers, turned to go, 

The tide was rising high ! 
A broken strip of white sand shone 

Between the shore and me. 
And crawling up my rocky throne 

Was the relentless sea. 
I clambered down to try the bar. 

The rock looked hard and grim. 
The beach was not so very far 

Away, and I could swim. 
But when was reached its wave-washed base 

Such hopes proved all in vain ; 
Of the white sand appeared no trace, 

I must go up again. 
The stoutest swimmer's heart might quail 

Such length of surf to try ; 
My girlish strength would surely fail. 

Young, loved, yet I must die ! 
I shuddered, but one thrill of joy 

Shot through my heart like flame, — 
That heart in life pledged to Le Roy 

Death gave to Allan Graem ! 
Why failed my lover, tall and grand, 

To come and rescue me ? 
I snatched his ring from off" my hand 

And hurled it in the sea. 
Then cried aloud, waved towards the beach, — 

There was no boat in sight ! 
But see ! one noble swimmer stretch 

Towards me in his might ; 



12 



134 TWO LOVERS. 

The hungry waves were at iny feet 

While onward still he came, 
And oflP the rock I plunged to meet 

The arms of Allan Graem. 
A swimmer's belt around my waist 

He fastened. '^ See, the tide 
Is high, the way must be retraced," 

He said ; " keep by my side." 
How short the distance now to me 

With his strong arm so near ! 
I would have braved a rougher sea 

Without one thouo'ht of fear. 
By joy buoyed up I was afloat. 

My courage could not fail ; 
My heart was in love's fairy boat, 

And hope unfurled the sail. 

:ij ;Ji ^ :?i * 

And this is how it came to pass, — 

As Jack doth tell the tale, — 
Le Eoy had spied me through a glass, 

And cried out, turning pale, 
^'I cannot save her !" Allan Graem 

One moment stern and mute, 
Then sneered, " Oh, no ! 'twould be a fhame 

To spoil that London suit ! 
Stay, while I rescue from the sea 

The treasure you resign ; 
But life or death, whiche'er it be, 

Kemember, she is mine !" 
Dear Grace, from off the mountain's brow 

Has melted all the snow. 
And where my heart is dwelling now 

Love's summer roses blow. 



SILENT WOOING. 135 

N.B. — Yet once again my pen I dip 

To please our dear old '^ Jock." 
He says Le Roy's an outside chip 

Of some old English block, 
Who — since his brilliant course is run 

As quite a swell designer — 
Turns out an unacknowledged son, — 

A California " miner." 



SILENT WOOING. 

They met in silence, soul to soul 

Thrilled forth its voiceless story, 
What time the moon on midnight scroll 

Traced her fantastic glory 
In silver etchings, on the leaves 

Each mystic message printing. 
On fields of shadow-shining sheaves 

Adown the darkness glinting. 

With witching spells the night beguiled 

The full moon's tender graces. 
While in his dusky face she smiled, 

And clung to his embraces. 
Two human hearts in silence there 

This lesson were repeating ; 
They met and mingled, strong and fair, 

Like light and darkness meeting. 

No word was spoken, but there came. 
Where heart to heart was leaning. 

Across the silence thoughts of flame 
To bridge the gap with meaning. 



136 SILENT WOOING. 

From soul to soul an arch of light 

Across the stillness stretching, 
Ablaze with glory, as the night 

With all its silver etching. 

Close to their feet, down rocky ways, 

A crystal stream went glancing, 
White beams, like silver-sandalled fiiys, 

Along its waters dancing. 
Now to a weird and waning strain, 

Now to a wild, mad measure, 
That river song, like love's refrain, 

Ean, mingling pain with pleasure. 

In light and shadow, peace and strife, 

The waters past them dashing. 
Were, like their hopes and fears of life, 

Adown the future flashing. 
The waves with laughter, sob, and moan 

On to the ocean fleeting. 
Left in their listening: hearts a tone 

To haunt that silent meeting. 

He broke a strong: branch from the tree 

Above them lowly bending. 
Clasped by a frail vine tenderly. 

Love, strength, and beauty blending. 
She kissed the branch — he kissed the vine — 

And cast them in the river. 
Then clasped her hand, whose eyes said " Thine 

Forever and forever." 



TWO CROWNS. 137 

TWO CKOWNS. 



Godfrey de Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine, refused a throne in Jerusa- 
lem, saying, " I will never wear a crown of gold in the city where my 
Saviour wore a crown of thorns." 



Forth from the holy city to the sky 

Went pealing up a glad, victorious shout, 
When from the jasper battlements on high 

Fair morning flung her golden banner out. 
As spirits of the darkness, fleeing fast 

Before the bright battalions of the sun. 
Before the cross of Christ had fled at last 

The pagan hordes, — Jerusalem was won ! 

'Mid his triumphant band Duke Godfrey stood. 

And grateful praises trembled on his lips 
To see the Moslem crescent, stained with blood. 

Grow pale, and vanish in a bright eclipse. 
For, while the early dew was gleaming still, 

Like tears of joy, on Mount Moriah's crest. 
Some Christian knight had climbed that holy hill 

And planted there the standard of the blest. 

Above the shattered walls, and o'er the tomb 

By which of late the mocking Moslem trod. 
The banner of the cross was seen to loom 

Triumphant there, — the panoply of God ! 
And the fair garden of Gethsemane, 

Where blossoms tessellate the tufted moss, — 
Scene of Christ's agony, — appeared to be 

Illumined by the standard of the cross. 
12* 



138 TWO CROWNS, 

Then to the conqueror of Jerusalem, 

Who grieved to see her beauty stained with gore, 
The glorious offer of a diadem 

With one consent his grateful soldiers bore. 
But Grodfrey pointed where soft clouds now rolled 

Round Calvary and said, " My soul yet mourns 
Christ's death, — and shall I wear a crown of gold 

AVhere He so meekly bore a coronal of thorns ? 

" Shall I in wild, barbaric splendor reign, 

And rest at night upon a kingly bed, 
Where Jesus, ofttimes worn by grief or pain, 

Found not a spot to rest his weary head ? 
A jewelled sceptre shall I proudly dare 

In idle pomp of indolence to sway 
Where the rough cross my Saviour sadly bare. 

And fainted 'neath its burden by the way ? 

" Shall serfs and vassals my proud will abide 

Where Jesus, when a vile and wicked crew 
Fiercely reviled him, to his Father cried, 

* Forgive them, for they know not what they do' ? 
Shall slaves for me the richest viands dress. 

Here shall my board with useless splendor blaze, 
From whence He wandered to the wilderness 

And fasted there for forty weary days ? 

" I'd rather seek 'neath Sodom's inky flood 

A throne within the cities of the plain 
Than wade through heaps of slain and pools of blood 

Over Christ's ransomed sepulchre to reign. 
No ! let me rather these red stains remove 

Where Jordan's holy waters softly glide, 
And where the shadow of a snow-white dove 

Is hovering still to consecrate the tide. 



LITTLE THINGS. 139 

'' A pilgrim to the sepulchre, 'tis meet 

That I should serve my God as humbly there 
As she who washed with tears his blessed feet, 

And wiped them gently with her shining hair. 
I've knelt beside the tomb which — pale and cold — 

With Christ's fair image Memory adorns, 
And I will never wear a crown of gold 

Where he died bleeding 'neath a crown of thorns/' 



LITTLE THINGS. 

Scorn not to heed a little thing, 

For daily trifles fill 
The measure of our lives, and bring 

Their store of good or ill. 
From little things, like grains of wheat, 

Scattered on life's broad field, 
We reap the bitter or the sweet, 

The bliss or woe they yield. 

Root from thy heart each little sin, 

Though bright the bloom it wears. 
Else, when life's harvest's gathered in. 

Thy wheat be choked with tares ! 
From little early errors spring 

Long lives deformed by crime. 
As worms deform the leaves they sting 

In early summer time. 

Our home, our heart-life takes a tone, 
A checkered light and shade. 

From little things, like mites of stone 
In fine Mosaic laid. 



140 A HEAVENLY KISS. 

An atom lost, a scratch, a stain, 
The picture may destroy, 

As little slights oft dash with pain 
Home-pictures full of joy. 

The little rays from many suns 

Sow heaven's blue steeps with light, 
And little acts of loving ones 

Make earthly dwellings bright. 
By tiny sands our sweetest springs 

Are filtered as they glide ; 
By good, fond, tender, little things 

Life's stream is purified. 



A HEAVENLY KISS. 

The man in the moon has forgotten to frown. 

And is stealing a kiss to-night ; 
See, beautiful Venus is bending down 

To his cold lips her brow of light. 
He's hiding himself while he steals a kiss. 

For his weird face can scarce be seen 
As he steers aloft to his goal of bliss 

In a shallop of silver sheen. 

He is singing, " Come sail with me afar, 

Through the shoreless blue let us float ;" 
And he clasps with rapture the evening star, 

As they glide in his phantom boat. 
The man in the moon has not wooed in vain, 

Lovely Venus is all his own ; 
They are sailing together — but look again, 

She has left him, he drifts alone. 



THE FLIGHT OF APRIL. 141 

Like the earthly lovers who, sated, turn 

From their idols, too lightly won, 
Do his faithless lips already yearn 

For the kiss of some warmer sun ? 
Or has she left him and wandered away. 

As maidens on earth sometimes do, 
To seek a more glorious mate ? Well-a-day ! 

Perchance they are both untrue. 

As to earthly love, let it come and pass 

If this be a heavenly sample 
Of truth, for the heavenly bodies, alas ! 

Are setting a fearful example. 
False men in the future will point up and say, 

" He grew tired of Venus as soon ;" 
False maidens will cry to their lovers, " Away ! 

You are cold as the man in the moon." 



THE FLIGHT OF APEIL. 

By frozen rills 

Among the hills 
Was smiling April lost, 

Where winter stern 

His icy urn 
Had left all wreathed with frost. 

Her tears and smiles 

And countless wiles 
Filled his cold heart with joy, 

And there he left 

The glitt'ring gift 
Her footsteps to decoy. 



142 THE FLIGHT OF APRIL, 

No sooner spied 

The maid blue-eyed 
This wondrous vase of sheen, 

Than hail was strunsc 

And snow-wreaths hunor 
All o'er her robes of irreen. 

Right quick she threw 

Her violets blue 
And golden crocus down, 

And gemmed them o'er 

With frost before 
She wove another crown. 

And when the sun 

Around them spun 
A web of amber light, 

She saner ^th dee 

And lausched to see 
Her diadem so bright. 

But soon, alas ! 

It came to pass 
That Sol his light withdrew, 

When cold beneath 

That frosted wreath 
Fair April's forehead grew. 

And through her heart 

An icy dart 
Seemed piercing when she crossed 

On her warm breast 

That green robe drest 
In white festoons of frost. 



THE FLIGHT OF APRIL. 143 

The wind blew bleak, 

And on ber cheek 
The tears soon turned to sleet, 

Which, falling, crushed 

The buds that blushed 
In beauty at her feet. 

Her voice was mute. 

Her breezy lute 
Lay broken on the hill, 

And in her ear 

Blew loud and clear 
Old Winter's clarion shrill. 

While there, spell-bound. 

She stood, the sound 
Of icy armor rang 

O'er field and flood, 

And shook the wood 
With cold and dismal clang. 

She wept with fear. 

For lo ! drew near. 
The hoary-headed king. 

And doflPed his crown 

And knelt him down 
To woo the child of Spring. 

With fingers sharp 

He swept his harp 
Among the tall pines hung, 

Nor all in vain 

His wild strange strain 
To list'ning April sung, 



144 THE FLIGHT OF APRIL, 

For frail and fair 
And trembling there 

She hearked his tale of love, 
Though cold as death 
His freezing breath 

A snow-shroud round her wove. 

Her heart grew proud 

As low he bowed 
To woo her budding charms, 

And far awaj 

She fled that day, 
Clasped in his icy arms. 

With fickle heart 
She did depart. 
Nor mourned her mother's grief, 
Thouirh nauG-ht was left 
To Spring bereft 
' But withered bloom and leaf. 

Yet Spring did yearn 

For her return. 
And hoping was beguiled, 

Till from the north 

A voice came forth 
With tidings of her child. 

To halls of rime 

In northern clime 
Had winter borne his prize, 

And crowned her queen 

'Neath domes of sheen 
Lit up by polar skies. 



THE FLIGHT OF APRIL, 145 

Her mournful smile 

Made for awhile 
Those dismal shores seem bright, 

And 'neath its glow 

Were fields of snow 
Left blushing with delight.* 

To bid her hail 

The icebergs pale 
Their frozen jav'lins dashed 

Upon the strand, 

While loud and grand 
Their icy cymbals clashed. 

But drooped and died 

Old Winter's bride 
Within his frozen palace. 

And for her soul 

The north winds toll : 
And waves the borealis, 

A funeral torch, 

Which cannot scorch 
The pale, sad flowers that start, 

Like ghosts of bloom. 

Through her snow-wrapped tomb, 
From April's broken heart. 

* Arctic travellers tell us of pink snow in the polar regions. 



13 



146 CASPER'S VENGEANCE. 

CASPER'S VENGEANCE. 

A ROMANCE OF GERMAN HISTORY.* 



A 3I0AN from the conquered city, 

A wail from the multitude, 
For the ^conqueror hath no pity 

And the dust is laid with blood. 
His cruelty knows no measure, 

His heart hath but one desire, — 
To follow a train of treasure 

Away from a funeral pyre. 
All human sympathy spurning, 

He would stand, as Nero stood. 
To mock at a city burning. 

And curdle its flames with blood. 
But a tall, dark monk hath haunted 

His path through the reeking town, 
By his bridle-rein undaunted. 

Unmindful of taunt or frown. 
Quoth the fierce chief to the stranger, 

" Now why dost thou follow me ?" 
Saith the friar, " Thou art in danger ; 

I am here to shelter thee." 
But he laughed at this timely warning, 

His spirit with greed aflame. 
All shadow of danger scorning 

Through the terror of Melac's name, 

* See Zimmerman's account of General Melac. 



CASPER'S VENGEANCE. 147 

Till a bitter curse came ringing 

With the flash of a lifted blade ; 
Then the tall monk, upward springing, 

That vengeful dagger stayed. 
But he bled, and the chieftain halted : 

"A horse for the monk," he cried, 
Who quick to the saddle vaulted. 

And rode by the conqueror's side, 
Through that fair doomed city sweeping, 

And over great heaps of slain, 
The Bernardine monk still keeping 

Close guard on his bridle-rein. 
Till they reached the cathedral tower. 

Quoth the monk, as he glanced on high, 
" This is sacred." " No, by my power ! 

It shall blaze to the evening sky, 
A bonfire for my pleasure." 

" Come, then," said his guard, " for there 
Is hidden a heap of treasure ; 

Help save it if thou wouldst share." 
One glance, as of quick suspicion. 

Shot forth from the grim chief's eye ; 
Hard, faithless, without contrition. 

His thought was of treachery. 
But greed with its subtle power 

Hid death 'neath a mask of gold. 
And he followed the monk to the tower 

Where the grand old bell was tolled. 
Up a narrow stairway winding. 

Then his dark guide — tall and strong — 
Flung round him a lasso, binding 

His arms with a leathern thong. 



148 CASPER'S VENGEANCE. 

One sharp cry of anguish stifled, 

And over the granite rock 
Dragged forth where the soft winds trifled 

With a gilded weathercock. 
Yet another lasso flinorino; 

Around him with giant might, 
The monk sent the soldier swinging 

Adown from that dizzy height. 
Crying wildly, " Just God of Heaven, 

Though vengeance belongs to thee, 
I thank thee that thou hast given 

This mission of death to me. 
Ho, Melac ! know thy defender : 

That German blade was turned 
That thy flesh might be crisped to tinder. 

And thy cruel, black heart burned ! 
Far over the walls of jasper. 

Safe, safe from thy lust and hate, 
For me — for her lover, Casper — 

An angel of light doth wait. 
She had worn a crown of myrtle. 

Fair Marie, my bride ; but now 
I am wearing a cowl and kirtle, 

And fulfilling a vengeful vow. 
That vengeance shall mark thy story, 

A shame to thy fellow-men, 
A blot on thy nation's glory, 

^ Hyena of Esslingen !' " 
He was gone, and his victim swinging, — 

A speck in the sunset air, — 
Beheld from the city springing 

A deeper and darker glare 



ELDER-FLO WERS. 149 

Than the sunset's tender flushing, 

While the stars, pale, pure, divine. 
Saw their silver shadows blushing 

Adown in the blood-red Rhine. 
avenging God ! 'tis the fire ! 

Leaping high on the breeze it came 
Onward, up the cathedral spire ! 

He is licked by its tongues of flame ! 
While a people's curse loud ringing 

Rose over the smoke and din 
To that blackened cinder swinging, — 

The " Hyena of Esslingen !" 



ELDER-FLOWERS. 

When the beautiful elder-flowers are drifting their sum- 
mer snow 

Over the warm, green meadows, there echoes a wail of 
woe 

Through the breeze that stirs their clusters, and their 
bitter-scented breath 

Comes to me ever ladened with a memory of death. 

Fresh flowers were heaped in vase and urn on the festive 
board one day. 

When some honored guests were bidden, when our home 
was bright and gay ; 

Roses and lilies marked the path of the golden summer 
hours. 

Mother, why did you chance to call for those fatal elder- 
flowers ? 

13^ 



150 ELDER-FLOWERS. 

" Bring me a cluster of elder ;" it was spoken, and he was 

gone, 
My fair young brother, gallant and gay, riding over the 

lawn, 
Wearing the glory of youth and strength, — a panoply of 

light ; 
But, lo ! by his side a phantom rode, in armor as black 

as night. 

The mother's love, that down his path like a guardian 

angel flew, 
Might cope in vain with that dark form, hid where the 

elder-blossoms grew. 
A smothered cry from the meadow rose, with grief and 

horror rife. 
That tore away youth's mask of bliss from the morn of 

my boyhood's life. 

I can hear the shriek of anguish yet, that fiercely rent 

apart 
The strength of my mother's love, and left a scar upon 

her heart. 
Like the voice of the lightning when it rends some fair 

young forest oak. 
And leaves a blighted branch to mark the fail of its 

deadly stroke. 

The clusters were plucked — the horse had plunged, and 

laid his rider low 
'Mid the elder-blooms, and warm young blood was flecking 

their scented snow. 
The light had gone out of his beaming eye, and out of 

that sunny noon, 
And this is why a wail comes up from the elder-flowers 

in June. 



LILLA CLARE. 151 

For when that beautiful summer day ran out its golden 

sands 
He was still and white as the fatal flowers they laid in 

his folded hands. 
I had never looked on death until that picture smote my 

brain, 
And ever to me the elder-flower must wear a crimson 

stain. 

And this is why, when their scented flakes through warm 
green meadows blow, 

An echo of anguish drifts to me from out the " long 
ago." 

And this is why the crimson blot that fell on that joyous 
noon 

Still taints the breath and stains the white of the elder- 
flowers in June. 



LILLA CLAEE. 

Wearily, drearily, mournfully fair. 

By a deep river roves young Lilla Clare 

At midnight. Oh ! why is she wandering there ? 

Gently the long jetty tresses unfurl, 

And veil her white bosom with many a curl, 

Like dark waters drifting o'er islands of pearl. 

And the fair brow, 'neath their glorious shroud, 
Gleams white as yon moon, in his watch-tower proud, 
Looking to earth o'er a rampart of cloud, 



152 LILLA CLARE. 

From her storm-castle, (whose battlement mars 
The wondrous flash from night's turret of stars), 
Sad as a victim through dull prison bars. 

Shivering, quivering, plaintively there, 
O'er the swift river comes wailing the air, 
Flying in gusts, like wild shrieks of despair. 

And 'neath the frost-tinted grove where she stood 
Tall, trembling trees dropped their leaves in a flood,- 
Crimson leaves, dropping like showers of blood. 

As if the lightning had cleft with its dart 

One of bright Autumn's full, warm veins apart, 

Leaving the rich drops to gush from her heart. 

Soon o'er the moon and the stars seem to creep, 
Huge inky clouds, like the billows that sweep 
Where stately armadas go down in the deep. 

But the night's darkness, and winds' dismal wail. 
Of her who stands shuddering there in the gale 
Tell not, whose eyes look so mournful a tale. 

Beautiful, frail, while the storm-cannons boom 
Graceful she stands by that river's deep gloom. 
Like a Parian vase, by a rain-darkened tomb. 

Lamps in yon castle a gay throng reveal. 

Floods of soft light through its high windows steal, 

And on the night wind, hark ! music's lou*d peal ! 

See, 'tis a bridal, for there side by side, 
Haughty Lord Alfred and fair Effie Glide 
Stand to be wedded in beauty and pride. 



LILLA CLARE. 153 

Scarcely less bright than the coi'onal there 

Gleameth the lustre of Effie's soft hair, 

And 'neath rare pearls is her bosom most fair. 

Their hands were united ; the holy man said, 

" Can any find cause why they should not be wed?" 

And through the halls a deep silence was shed, 

Breathless, oppressive ; and then, loud and clear, 
Shrieked a voice loudly, " Oh, let me come near, 
Lilla, his wife ! I am here, I am here ! 

" Fearfully, tearfully, blushing with pride, 
From the gray chapel I came forth his bride. 
Lord Alfred, now dare you wed Effie Glide ? 

" Secret our bridal : ah, weary and sad 

My warm heart has grown, once hopeful and glad." 

" Away !" cried Lord Alfred, " away, she's mad !" 

For lo ! in the midst of that company fair. 

The rain oozing out from her cloud of black hair, 

Cold as a statue stood young Lilla Clare. 

To ** her mate" she had flown like a storm-beaten dove, 
And found him deserting the ark of her love. 
Ah ! whither now shall her weary wings rove ? 

Wretched, forsaken, and yet did he say, 

^' She's mad ! away with her !" They turned to obey, 

But she swept past them and went on her way. 

Mournfully, scornfully. Stern man, hast thou 
Forgotten her fondness, thine own solemn vow ? 
Where hast thou driven that proud victim now ? 



154: RECONCILED. 

Fair Effie wept till her perjured lord swore 
He never had seen crazy Lilla before. 
Then was the priest interrupted no more. 

The tempest passed bv, and morning did fold 
The earth in her vesture of purple and gold, 
But in the village the chapel bell tolled. 

Dost hear it, Lord Alfred, the haughty and strong, 
Where sweepeth thy gay wedding-pageant along? 
Dost mark yonder wond'ring and grief-stricken throng 

Hard by the river, whose eddies are bright 

As dimples adorning a smile of delight ? 

No voice from its bosom doth tell of last night, 

Yet on the rocks where the cataracts bound 
In the gray dawn some rude fishermen found 
Poor Lilla Clare, broken-hearted and drowned ! 



RECONCILED. 

Northmen, we have met each other 

In a fierce and deadly strife ; 
Brother fighting against brother, 

Blood for blood and life for life. 
Striving for the rights we cherished, 

Both were brave and one was strong ; 
All our bonds of Union perished, 

Eight led madly on to wrong. 
Both have memories of glory, 

Both have legacies of woe. 
For our bravest, gashed and gory, 

Side by side are lying low. 



RECONCILED. 155 

Both were reckless, fierce, and daring, 

Both record rash deeds of crime ; 
Both have left red foot-prints glaring 

Down a ghastly waste of time. 
War's foul vintage, dark and evil. 

Washed away God's love divine ; 
'Mid the battle's frantic revel 

Earth drank human blood like wine. 
Five long years a tide of madness. 

Lashed our land from shore to shore, 
Bearing from our homes the gladness, 

From our hearts the love of yore. 
Dawn of peace saw no returning 

Of our friendship and our faith ; 
Discord's lurid torch was burning 

Hot as on the fields of death. 
Vanquished sullen, — victors gloating, — 

North, and South, apart we stood, 
Between the snow and roses floating, 

One long red mirage of blood ; 
While the angel of our nation 

From yon azure battlement 
Through that time of desolation 

Mourned our hate and discontent. 
" I have stayed the crimson river, 

And ye wear the crown of peace ; 
Must your hatred last forever. 

Will this discord never cease?" 
Cried the spirit, upward springing. 

And his voice of music blown 
Through that shining rift went ringing 

In a prayer to God's white throne. 



156 RECONCILED. 

" Ere the new year's snow-wreaths shelter 

Northern hills from leafless gloom, 
Ere its springs of sunlight filter 

Into seas of southern bloom, 
By the fire of tribulation, 

Or through joy,^ — if not too late, — 
God of mercy, cleanse this nation 

From its leprosy of hate !" 
Then along those sunny regions, 

Down the summer's golden way, 
More relentless than the legions 

Of our daring blue and gray, 
Lo ! a pestilence came, bringing 

Death and poverty and dole, 
Dismal misereres ringing 

From the palm lands to the pole. • 
Long warm days in sorrow hiding 

All the brightness of their smiles. 
Like a band of veiled nuns gliding 

Down the summer's haunted aisles ; 
Requiems stirred her altar flowers. 

And those trembling prayers were told 
On rosaries of sunlit hours, 

Dropt like tear-stained beads of gold. 
Time was multiplied by sorrows 

Till the days to ages grew, 
Brazen suns shot poisoned arrows. 

Stilly nights dropped poisoned dew. 
Battle-stained and torn and bleeding — 

Better thus, through years of strife. 
Than a yellow vampire feeding 

On that warm and teeming life. 



RECONCILED. 157 

Better of all glory rifled 

Than plague-smitten writhing thus, 
Like a fair strong swimmer stifled 

By the awful octopus. 
Helpless victim, unresisting, 

Strangled by that foul embrace, 
A bloated monster madly feasting 

On thy loveliness and grace. 
Land of beauty, northward flying, 

Wailing through the electric chains, 
Thy tearful whisper, " We are dying," 

Wiped away the battle stains. 
Down from village, town, and city, 

Back to mourning Dixie rolled 
Tides of tenderness and pity. 

Warm with kindness, rich with gold. 
Bounteous wealth from mart and mountain, 

Sweeping South in lavish waves, 
Charity's unsullied fountain 

Bore unto that land of graves. 
Not as strangers give each other 

Alms — oft asked in idle greed — 
But as brother unto brother 

Gave ye to us in our need. 
Came no questions, '^ Are they loyal ?" 

^' Right or wrong, or friends or foes?" 
Stream of Sardis, rich and royal, 

In our midst your largess flows. 
In our grief we were forgiven ; 

Stricken down, ye bade us live ; 
So much love in sorrow's leaven 

Leaves us nothing to forgive. 



14 



158 THE WATERS OF LIFE. 

Gratitude with shinins: arches 

Spans the red gulf at our feet ; 
Over them let palms and larches, 

Orange-trees and laurels meet. 
Over reefs of discord lifted, 

Past Hate's angry maelstrom moored, 
Where no battle-wrecks are drifted, 

Banner torn or broken sword, 
We have seen the crimson river 

Into peaceful water flow ; 
War's mirage has paled forever, 

Eoses blush against the snow. 
Hero, soldier, freeman, brother, 

Stand we now for weal or woe, 
As we met and stood tosiether 

In our nation's '• long ago," 
As beyond the mystic river 

Meet our lost, the blue and gray, 
In that fair far-off forever. 

Where all stains are washed away. 
Echo here the glad '' Hosanna" 

Drifted from that blessed shore, 
Blazon •• Eight" upon our banner. 

On our hearts Excelsior. 



THE WATEES OF LIFE. 

AN ALLEGORY. 

Mortals find two fountains gushing 
In life's pleasant, sunny land ; 

One through banks of roses rushing 
Over beds of golden sand. 



THE WATERS OF LIFE. 159 

While the other glides forever 

In a sluggish, inky vein. 
Pleasure is the sparkling river, 

And the darker tide is pain. 
Pleasure hath the higher level, 

Springing with a dulcet sound ; 
Pain — that floweth out of evil — 

Is in lower strata found. 
Yet these streams of pain and pleasure 

Flow forever on and sweep — 
Bright and dark — their wrecks of treasure 

To a shadowy, shoreless deep. 
We may drink, but we must fetter 

Pleasure's sweet, seductive tide, 
For the other stream is bitter. 

And their course is side by side. 
If we break its blooming border, 

Lo ! the springs will overflow 
And mix, in growing broader. 

With that murky tide below. 
When they meet, in vain we measure 

The darkness of the stain ; 
Light from wasted waves of pleasure 

Brightens not the deeps of pain. 
Though the rift with verdure closes, 

And the stream is onward rolled. 
We are exiled from its roses 

And its driftino; sands of o-old. 
Still through life's fair vale it flashes, 

Sparkling, singing, clear and cool. 
While we thirst on shores of ashes 

By a bitter, stagnant pool ! 



160 BORX BLIXD. 



BORN BLIXD. 

From one born blind 

Our Saviour kind 
Tore off the 2:loora of nisctt. 

To sightless eyes — 

As to the skies — 
Grod said. •'• Let there be light," 

*• And it was so." 

We may not know 
The mysteries of that One 

Who gave thee eyes 

Like summer skies 
Yet sealed them from the sun. 

So soft, so bright, 
Yet reft of Hght, 

Save inward rays that stole 

Mysterious through 

Their tender blue. 
And lit them from the soul. 

Pure spirit gone, 

Hadst thou liyed on 
Perchance some deadly blight, 

Some taint of sin, 

Had entered in 
And robbed thy soul of light. 



No earthly spot, 
Xo inner blot, 
Only two blue eyes sealed. 



A LEGEND OF THE RED BUD. 161 

A few dark days, 
And then a blaze 
Of endless day revealed. 

A child born blind 

Has gone to find 
Morning without a night. 

The one we mourn, 

To darkness born, 
Christ hath restored to sight. 



A LEGEND OF THE KED BUD. 

In the balmy wood of Palestine, 

Through ages long, long gone, 
A lithe and shapely tree was seen 

With blossoms fair as dawn. 
When spring's soft eye was full of light. 

And eastern skies aglow. 
It wore a crown of flowers as white 

As drifts of northern snow 

Till — woe the time — its leaves were strewn 

With winter's mould and dross, 
When lo ! that fatal tree was hewn 

To shape the Saviour's cross. 
Then, as its sturdy trunk crashed down, 

A shock of grief and fear 
Thrilled all its kind, from root to crown, 

In the forests of Judea. 
I 14^ 



162 AMONG THE LILIES. 

The crimson tide from nail and tliorn 

Left there a fatal stain, 
And never, never hath it worn 

A spotless crown again. 
No early leaves thereafter came 

With tender, budding grace, 
And tardy blossoms blushed with shame 

In Spring's sweet, smiling face. 

Accursed its kind, root, flow'r, and st^m, 

Since erst it sadly stood 
Near by the old Jerusalem, 

Baptized in holy blood. 
Through every age, in every clime, 

With crimson darkly dyed. 
In memory of that direful time 

When Christ was crucified. 

And — north or south — where'er it be 
For aye 'twill be the same ; 

While April weeps, the red-bud tree 
^- Will blush with grief and shame, — 

With grief for purity bereft. 
With horror, shame, and fear. 

That for the cross its trunk was cleft 
In the forests of Judea. 



AMONG THE LILIES. 

Dost mind the summer day when first we met 

Upon the crystal pathway of a lake 
Paved with white lilies ? I can see thee yet 

As, bending downward, thou didst stoop to break 



AMONG THE LILIES. 163 

One royal flower, when from its sensuous rest 

A green snake, startled in that scented lair, 
Uncoiling quick npreared an angry crest 

And struck at thy white hand, descending there ! 
Why wonder that the viper strove to smite 

A thing so fair? What time its shadow gleamed 
Within the lake it shamed the creamy white 

Of the rare lily dome 'neath which he dreamed. 
But not as other women cry aloud, 

And hide affrighted eyes in helpless hands, 
Didst thou ; though terror, like an ashen cloud, 

Quenching the rosy fire of sunset brands. 
Put out the flush of beauty from thy cheek 

And paled the crimson arch of thy proud lips. 
Never profaned by an affrighted shriek. 

Strong with the fear that blanched thy coral finger-tips, 
I saw thee grasp a slender oar, and strike 

The serpent dead upon his lily throne. 
And then I loved thee ; thou wert so unlike 

All other women. Oh my lily-queen, my own ! 
I gained thy side, — swift rowing from the strand, — 

And whispered, " Thou art brave, nor lightly foiled," 
For lo ! the dangerous flower was in thy hand. 

The smitten snake about its golden petals coiled. 
A startled answer came, — for thou hadst felt alone, — 

^'Oh no ! it was so small, and scarcely could resist." 
The while a tint through thy clear pallor shone. 

Tender as flush of tropic moon- through mountain mist. 
" I hate the mortal fear that made me smite 

A thing so beautiful, but then you know" — 
And to thy dark eye leapt a laughing light — 

^' The serpent is the woman's deadly foe." 



164 THE F&TE OF THE FLOWERS, 

Thou art too pure to seek for hidden foes, 

Too brave to fear whatever may betide. 
'Tis thine to smite the asp and wear the rose, 

To gather lilies all unharmed where spotted adders glide. 
Forever blest that sweet day, soft and warm, 

The green snake dreaming in the lily's cone, 
That led me to a love whose subtle charm 

Has crowned my life and left no sting, my lily-queen, 
my own ! 



THE FETE OF THE FLOWERS. 

A FABLE. 

Through the gay floral world, through the gardens and 
bowers 

There was quite an excitement of late. 
For the radiant Eose, sovereign queen of the flowers, 

Had proclaimed she would give a grand fete. 

They were soon in a flutter of eager delight ; 

'Twould be charming — a party in June ! 
All to meet in the gloaming, and dance after night 

By the light of a full summer moon. 

For it is 'neath the charm of these mystical hours 
That the garden-sprites spring from their cells. 

Into fairies transforming the beautiful flowers 
By the might of their magical spells. 



THE F&TE OF THE FLOWERS. 165 

They retain the same color, the same sweet perfume, 

Yet the shape of a fairy is there : 
Elfin face, form, and wings, shadowed forth from each 
bloom, 

Bright as star-beams and light as the air. 

The intimate friends of Queen Rose were delighted, 
While of those, — the less favored and fair,— 

Some trembled for fear they would not be invited, 
Others fretted in anxious despair. 

Miss Marigold, full of pretension and pride, 

Quite vain, and yet apt to be slighted, 
Envied several sweet flowers that grew by her side, 

And vowed they should not be invited. 



She affected great friendship with all the elite. 

And, speaking to Fuchsia or Lily, 
Would address them by pet names, when chancing to 
meet, 

Which made her appear very silly. 

The aristocrats all knew so perfectly well 

She was toady and parvenu, too, 
Setting up (with but two cross old beaux) for a belle — 

'Squire Nettle and bachelor Rue ! 

Half distracted to go to Queen Rose's grand ball, 

And keep those so detested away. 
She determined on paying a formal state call 

At the earliest possible day. 



166 THE FETE OF THE FLOWERS. 

In a calabash* coach, by two black spiders drawn, 

She drove off, very splendid, indeed, 
With old bachelor Rue (who'd been prinking since dawn). 

Alongside on his bumble-bee steed. 

Queen Rose to her subjects is seldom denied, 

Yet Miss Marigold felt very grand 
When admitted at court, and puffed up with false pride 

In Her Majesty's presence to stand. 

Sweeping in with a flourish, she felt ill at ease — 

Parvenues most invariably do ; 
And like all slighted dames, did she fidget and tease, 

While presenting her beau, " Mister Rue." 

" Your Highness' fete in the beau monde just now 

Is the topic," she said with a smile ; 
"Ah! you heard it, no doubt?" and the queen made a 
bow, 

" From your friend. Mistress Wild Camomile !" 

The cut was severe, and the queen saw her wince, 
But, simpering, she said, " Oh ! how funny ! 

No ; I was out feasting not very long since, — 
A collation of dewdrops and honey, — 

At Lady Clematis' ; 'twas last Friday night," 

And Miss Marigold's pride gave a swell ; 
" There Your Majesty's ball was discussed with delight: 

I first heard it from young Miss Bluebell. 

* In the Southern States there are calabash gourds so tiny, that 
some of them when full-grown are not larger than English walnut 
shells. 



THE F&TE OF THE FLOWERS. 167 

^' Mistress Wild Camomile is not one of our set ; 

'Tis Your Higliness' pleasure to jest ! 
Neither are the dames Violet and Mignonette, 

They are always so horribly dressed ! 

" I was rather astonished to find these two last, 
When your fete was discussed, so excited ; 

For I knew," and her treacherous eyes were downcast, 
" Common flowers would not be invited !" 

" Your collation must surely have been very late," 

Said the queen, with a dignified sneer ; 
" For last Friday I gave a grand dinner of state, 

And the Lady Clematis was here ; 

" As was also my sweet, fresh young friend. Mignonette, 

And the charming Miss Violet, too, 
In a dress so becoming it made me regret 

That my own royal robes were not blue !" 

Queen Rose looked Miss Marigold full in the face 

Till her yellow skin spotted with red. 
Yet indifi*erence she feigned with a very bad grace, 

And, at parting, most pompously said : 

" Oh, yes, it was Thursday — a trifling mistake ; 

Yet, though difiering in taste, after all, 
I am sure you'll be charmed with the toilette I'll make 

To appear at your sumptuous ball !" 

Then she flounced herself ofi"; but the bystanders knew 

Her defeat ; and there is a report 
That her bitter old beau even bitterer grew 

After taking his sweetheart to court. 



168 TEE FETE OF THE FLOWERS. 

With the queen's festive notes two bright humming-birds 
flew 

The rounds — all on gossamer printed ; 
And to honor each flower, lo ! with its own hue 

Each missive was daintily tinted. 

With her friendj Dame Snapdragon, Miss Marigold sat, 

And the gossips felt rather downcast, 
" Left out in the cold," and decidedly flat, 

When Her Majesty's pages flew past. 

" This is all a mistake !" in one voice they exclaimed, 

And half crazy, ran into the road 
To recall the queen's messenger ; but how ashamed 

Did they feel when old Doctor Tree-toad, 

Hopping down from his sanctum and chuckling outright, 

Said, '^ Ladies, pray don't be excited. 
For the queen's printer, Beetle, informed me last night 

Tou were not amons: the invited." 



" Oh, you spiteful old wretch !" Mistress Snapdragon 
cried, 

" Don't you know you are telling a lie?" 
Miss Marigold glaring in fury and pride ; 

Toady laughing as if he would die ! 

Flouncing round in a pet, they heard Miss Busy-bee, 
Humming up while he roared thus, declare 

His assertion correct — who knew better than she, 
Being hired the feast to prepare ? 



THE FilTE OF THE FLOWERS, 169 

Of the guests she could show a long list, as a seat 

And rich dainties were ordered for all, 
There were no vulgar upstarts — none but the elite, 

To appear at Her Majesty's ball. 

" And," continued Miss Bee, with a quick, saucy hum, 
Which made both the angry dames quiver, 

" What a pity, poor creatures ! you cannot be there," 
While Toady laughed louder than ever ! 

Mister Sage, who just chanced to be passing along. 

Halted in his most dignified walk, 
And admonished Miss Bee, as imprudent and wrong, 

To indulge in such frivolous talk. 

Who, defying his counsel, still chatted the more, 

Pertly bidding him go on his way ; 
What on earth did he stop for, the horrid old bore, 

If not pleased with what she chose to say ? 

" Who knew," she said giggling, " that Nettle and Rue 

Had a rival in wise Mister Sage ? 
Go freshen your old wrinkled face in the dew — 

How absurd to turn beau at your age ! 

" And I have not a doubt, before long you'll be seen 

On Miss Violet making a call. 
More especially since she is maid to the queen, 

And will be a great belle at the ball." 

This she said to heap coals on Miss Marigold's ire, 

Who replied, almost choking with rage, 
" That silly Miss Violet well might require 

Such an escort as Grandfather Sage." 
H 15 



170 THE FilTE OF THE FLOWERS, 

This speech and her anger were both so absurd, 
That he laughed with Tree-toad and Miss Bee, 

And the gossips, who flounced off in fury, still heard 
Long, uproarious mirth from the three. 

Sage had found 'twas to punish Miss Marigold's spite 

That his busy friend chatted and joked. 
And for twitting his age then forgave her outright — 

Far too wise to be lightly provoked. 

For, though rather too fond of retailing the news, 

Yet a kind little gossip is she. 
And those who would merit or beauty abuse. 

Found no list'ner in Miss Busy-bee ! 

The long- wished for night shone resplendently bright, 

And Queen Bose sat in state to receive. 
Ere the moon drifted up like a bubble of light 

From the gold-fretted billows of eve. 

In festoons o'er the throne gleaming glow-worms were 
strung, 

And on the green walls of the palace. 
Like Parian lamps orange-blossoms were swung, 

For fireflies flashed in each chalice ! 

All the ladies of honor around her first met 
With whose sweetness none others can cope, 

Miss White-jasmine, Night-jasmine, and Mignonette, 
Lily, Violet, Heliotrope ; 

Wearing each on her forehead the beam of a star, 

On her bosom a necklace of dew. 
They came all together in Lily's grand car — 

A pearl shell, which six butterflies drew. 



THE F&TE OF THE FLOWERS, 171 

On gray night-moths and beetles their six cavaliers 

In attendance rode gallant and gay ; 
Messieurs Ivy and Box (looking fresh for their years), 

Myrtle, Mistletoe, Holly and Bay. 

Miss Marigold, fretting herself in a fever, 

Had determined at last to despise 
Her sovereign's displeasure — vowed she would deceive her, 

And attend the grand ball in disguise. 

So from bower to bower she went peeping around 

When the hour for adorning drew near. 
As some castaway garments perchance might be found, 

Robed in which she would dare to appear. 

Her rage knew no bounds when she saw those so hated 

Dash off in such elegant style. 
While they, feeling happy and gay, and elated. 

Condescended a nod and a smile. 

Dropping dew on her velvet to heighten its gloss— 
AVhen Miss Marigold poked her head in — 

Pretty, vain little Pansy cried, "Don't look so cross, 
Marigold, you're as ugly as sin. 

" What are you about here ? — Why are you not dressing, 

You look shabby to go to the fete ; 
Ho, ho ! not invited ? — dear me, how distressing ! 

Pray excuse me, then, for I am late." 

When into her acorn-cup phaeton stepping. 

Drawn by honey-bees dainty and light, 
Her rich purple garments with dew-spangles dripping, 

She flashed out of Miss Marigold's sight. 



172 THE f£:te of the flowers. 

Next a tiny barouclie, by four grasshoppers drawn, 

A wee light carriage, cut from the shell 
Of a linnet's e^^^ passed, in which, fresh as the dawn, 

Sat Miss Daisy and sweet Miss Bluebell 

And wise Mr. Sage, having washed out the wrinkles, 

Dashed by in a pomegranate rind, 
With cricket steeds — driving the Miss Periwinkles, 

And a gadfly as footman behind. 

Sage bowed to Miss Marigold, for he scorned wreaking 

His revenge on a thing so forlorn 
That Busy-bee now would scarce deem her worth seeking 

As a target for railing and scorn. 

*^ The elite are all going, or gone !" in despair 

She exclaimed ; ^* and I'll go, for I feel. 
To spite the proud queen, even danger I'd dare 

A disguise to beg, borrow, or steal." 

Of the Sunflower sisters one lately had died, 

And the fete they declined to attend, 
So to look sympathizing Miss Marigold tried. 

And called in to console, as a friend. 

To befit the occasion she wore a Ions: face, 
As friends do — 'tis the way of the world — 

Though not caring a rush had the Sunflower race 
Then and there to destruction been hurled. 

They thanked ,her and cried ; for old meddlers and shrews 

Do the dismal in most taking style ; 
And, when chief among mourners, can look if they choose 

As though mirth were a thing to defile. 



THE F&TE OF THE FLOWERS. 173 

After weeping enough, she just ventured to ask 
If they had — would they part with a dress 

Of the dear one departed ? It was her sad task 
To appeal for some friends in distress — 

Some relations, — quite distant, — of theirs, she was told — 

Barn-yard flowers — in absolute need, 
Quite despoiled by the storm, their clothes covered with 
mould, 

Of their cousins' help worthy indeed. 

They gave all she asked for, and more, but informed 
Their informer in this wise : " These flowers. 

Who live in a barn-yard, poor, sallow, deformed, 
Be assured, are no cousins of ours." 

Most gratefully meek, she then left with a blessing ; 

But said, chuckling, when fairly outside. 
While in her false finery she began dressing, 

" Ugly things ! — how I stung their false pride !" 



A choir of nightingales piped for the dancers, 
While, with footsteps as light as the fall 

Of the moonbeams, they tripped through " the flower 
queen lancers," 
Flower-elves of that summer's-night ball ! 

Many fair ones surrounded the throne in a bevy. 

When a dwarfish Sunflower was seen, 
Ushered in by that name, who, awry and top-heavy, 

Made an awkward salaam to the queen. 

15^ 



174 THE FETE OF THE FLOWERS. 

" Ha ! pray, whom have we here ?" and the queen spoke 
aloud, 

As her queer-looking subject arose ; 
^^ Did Miss Marigold chance to forget when she bowed 

Her disguise needed perfect repose ? 

" A mean vulture, masked in the plumes of an eagle, 
Even more should be hated and loathed ! 

For base things look baser in robes and crowns regal, 
Than in fitting vulgarity clothed. 

^^ Come, my sweet, pretty Violet, come Mignonette, 

Tear away this unseemly disguise ! 
Subjects, mark this example, and never forget, 

I can punish as well as despise, 

^' Presumption, deceit, envy, hatred and malice ; 

And while those she has dared to defame 
High honors receive, from our presence and palace 

Is Miss Marigold banished in shame. 

*^ Let a trumpeter herald it through my domain, 
While the shame-spots that crimsoned her face 

'Neath our royal displeasure of late, shall remain. 
And thus brand her with endless disgrace. 

" Let Miss Marigold's shame be a warning to those 

Who defame by their evil report ; 
Let the just ones in power, as firm as Queen Rose, 

Banish envious gossips from court." 

MORAL. 

All the noble and good vain presumption despise ; 

A coarse nature wealth never refines ; 
Fine trappings vulgarity cannot disguise ; 

While refinement through poverty shines. 



TWO STREAMS. 175 

Though adorned by deceit, malice oft will disclose 

Its manoeuvres — its deepest plots spoil, 
As dealers in false gems their falseness expose 

By excess of base gilding and foil. 

Round the bright and the fair skulking Envy will glide, 
But when ruled by her twin-sister. Spite, 

Together they publish the hate they would hide, 
As the rattlesnake warns of his bite. 



TWO STREAMS. 

Beside a pleasant, gushing rill 

That wandered down a sloping hill, 

A band of children met to play 

Upon a soft, warm summer day. 

The earth was green, the sky was fair, 

And life to them was then and there ; 

Their future in " to-morrow" lay, 

Their past was lost in " yesterday." 

Some skipped smooth pebbles on the tide, 

Or jumped across from side to side 

On little island -rocks that curled 

The waters till they foamed and whirled : 

Some with their fingers in the sands 

Made eddies, or with eager hands 

Chased the swift-gliding minnowy throng 

Which to and fro, darting along 

Like tiny flakes of silver sheen. 

Flashed in among the rushes green. 



176 TWO STBEAMS. 

Others from acorn goblets drank. 

Stooping along the sedgy bank, 

While some for four-leaved clovers sought, 

Or garlands of wild daisies wrought. 

And one, the fairest of that bandj 

Waded along the soft, white sand, 

With small, bare feet and '' kilted coat," 

To where a reedy isle did float, 

A fragment from the ereen bank torn, 

A crreen waif down the streamlet borne. 

Tempting the little roguish maid. 

Dared by her mates, yet half afraid 

To ford the brook which ran so swift. 

She thought the gravelly path might drift 

Beneath her feet, for. looking through 

The rill, its bed seemed rushing too. 

But soon she stood midway the stream, 

Lausrhinor exultant 'neath the beam 

Of that sweet day. She knew no fear, 

There were no storms, no quicksands near. 

With sunny eyes and bright, brown hair. 

And low white brow, she was so fair 

That spite her simple homespun dress 

They called her '• pretty, brown-eyed Bess." 

A peer might covet for his child 

Such wondrous beauty, growing wild 

On Poverty's rough, sterile soil, 

Too vigorous for neglect to spoil 

Its perfect promise, — future blight. 

We dread not for a bud so bright, 

A water-lily 'mid the reeds ! 

A rose sprung up with wayside weeds ! 



TWO STREAMS. 177 

Upon a rock the floating isle 

She fixedj and seated there awhile, 

Picked smooth white pebbles from the stream 

Through which her little feet did gleam, 

White as the whitest, formed as fair 

As Grecian marble chiselled there. 

But soon she waded off once more 

To where, close by the sedgy shore, 

A boy was stooping down to float 

Upon the tide his tiny boat. 

So lightly built its paper sail 

The warm breeze rent, as a rough gale 

Might shred the rigging of a bark 

Upon the ocean wild and dark. 

A broken sail ! a fairy wreck ! 

It whirled away, — a mite, a speck 

Amid the shining ripples tossed. 

One moment, then forever lost. 

Hopeful, exultant, the gay boy 

Had launched it with a cry of joy, 

And anxiously along the brink 

Ran, hoping till he saw it sink ; 

Then, sobbing, cried with quivering lip, 

" There, now, it's sunk, my pretty ship !" 

When lightly on his head was laid 

A small, soft hand, and 'neath the shade 

Of chestnut ringlets " brown-eyed Bess'* 

Bent down her graceful head to press 

A kiss upon his sunburned face. 

With that peculiar, tender grace 

Which woman's tender nature yields 

Spontaneous, as untended fields 



m 



178 TWO STREAMS. 

Bring forth sweet herbs, or wilderness 

Wild-flowers to wreathe its summer dress. 

^' Don't cry, for you can build another," 

She said. " Come, let us 2:0 too:ether, 

And Master Eoy will help us make 

Great, tall, strong sails that cannot break/' 

And so they went to Master Roy, 

A haughty, wilful, selfish boy, 

A child of wealth, the petted heir 

To many an acre broad and fair. 

Where many laborers toiled to gain 

Their pittance, harvesting the grain. 

Ploughing and reaping, for the poor 

Must live to labor and endure. 

That pampered wealth with lavish pride 

May dwell in ease, for, side by side 

With want and pain they scarcely heed 

The waste of few might many feed. 

The rich boy's father little cared 

How these, his humble tenants, fared. 

Less heeded were their wants and calls 

Than horses groomed in costly stalls, 

Or the dumb herds by hirelings fed 

Who gleaned their masters' grain for bread. 

Suffer, ye poor, and toil, and die, 

To heap the rich man's coffers high. 

A tenant there, and laborer too, 

Young Bessie's father scarcely knew 

A human joy, save the fond care 

Of toiling for a child so fair. 

Children but seldom, — if they know, — 
Heed the degrees of high and low, 



TWO STREAMS, 179 

And " Master Roy" was oft beguiled 

To seek the cot where Bessie smiled, 

Coaxing her off with him to play 

Among the stacks of scented hay, 

Or seek in autumn's mellow hours 

Wild poppies, and the bright cornflowers 

Through harvest fields, or in some glade 

To gather nuts beneath the shade 

Of glowing woods, or fragrant thyme, 

And cowslips in the sweet springtime. 

How different was their earthly lot I 

His home a palace— hers a cot. 

But childhood's springs may meet and glide 

Together in a crystal tide ; 

One like a dashing mountain brook, 

The other stealing from a nook 

In shadowy, deep, sequestered dell. 

Purely they mingle till the swell 

Of youth's mad passion dares a leap 

Over that chasm dark and deep. 

Whence, parting on the rocks in strife, 

Turbid they join the stream of life. 

What matter that his playmate dear 

Was but a peasant, — he a peer ? 

Alas ! the boy paused not to scan 

How much 'twould matter to the man. 

Bess knew him handsome, thought him true, 

Felt equal, save in rank, and grew 

To look on him, as children look 

At princes in a fairy book. 

The ship was launched, for Boy did make 
Great, tall, strong sails, for Bessie's sake. 



180 TWO STREAMS. 

And so that merry band pkjed on 
Until the summer day was gone. 

That little stream amid the hills 

Went dancing on, fed by the rills 

And 2:ushino: spring's alons: its course. 

Till, gathering depth, and breadth, and force 

From bosky glen and rocky steep, 

Its rushing voice came loud and deep. 

Then, to the lowlands hurrying fast, 

Broader and deeper, till at last 

It swept along a mighty tide, 

A river turbid, strong, and wide, 

Down which a stream of commerce pours 

From towns and cities on its shores, 

A mighty current fierce and free, 

Rushing: forever to the sea. 



And the gay children erst at play 

Upon that long-gone summer day, 

Bright springs of childhood pure and clear, 

Sweeping o'er reefs of doubt and fear. 

Through calms of peace and storms of strife, 

Have gone to swell the stream of life. 

Far beyond yesterday their past 

Lies paling, and fond memories cast 

Their sad eyes to that '• long ago" 

When the to-morrow was aglow 

With mystic glory undefined. 

By Hope in childhood's warm heart shrined, 

As eve a glow-worm might enclose 

Within a crimson-hearted rose. 



TWO STREAMS. 181 

Some have lived well, and some in vain, 

All have found pleasure dashed with pain, 

For worldly cares, and grief, and woe. 

Haunting life's wide waste to and fro. 

Are like the dusky Arab trains 

Flitting along the desert plains. 

Pitching their tents where verdure tells 

Of peace beside the palmy wells. 

The boy who wept above the wreck 

Of his toy ship, upon the deck 

Of many a real one has stood. 

Its master, faithful, brave, and good. 

His "tall, strong sails" have caught the breeze, 

Spicy and warm, of Indian seas. 

And 'neath the Atlantic's surly blast 

Bent, stricken with the sturdy mast ; 

Braving fierce tempests that have left 

His bark of mast and sail bereft. 

And mourning wrecks that left a mark 

As faint upon the waters dark 

As the frail fragment of a toy 

He saw a summer breeze destroy. 

And where is she, the child so fair. 
With soft brown eyes and shining hair ? 
Fairest of all the band at play 
Upon that by-gone summer day. 
Beguiled by love's alluring voice. 
Her pure, glad spirit did rejoice. 
While yet with wondrous witching spell 
He made the harp of youth to swell 
With perfect tones in sweet accord, 
While Hope her future pathway starred 
16 



182 TWO STREAMS. 

With glory, as a summer night 

Is paved with constellated light, 

Till, on a gulf of passion tossed, 

She was betrayed, forsaken, lost. 

Roy ! proud favorite of fate, 

Born to high honors and estate, 

Rich in affection, friends, and gold. 

Why didst thou from that poor man's fold 

Steal the " one ewe lamb" there caressed 

So tenderly upon his breast ? 

Had he but filched one mite of thine — 

Where heaps of golden guineas shine — 

Though untold wealth to thee were left, 

Thou wouldst have branded him with theft. 

But crimes like thine the law defies, 

Foulest of all foul robberies ! 

Like one bereft of reason, sight, 

Plunged in a deep and rayless night 

Of misery, the old man cried 

For vengeance unto God and died ! 

Out from the city's smoke and gloom, 

Bereft of hope, of health, and bloom, 

Of all her girlhood's glory shorn — 

Save the sad pride that shrinks from scorn- 

With none to pity, none to bless. 

Out in the darkness '^ brown-eyed Bess" 

Stole forth, her shame and grief to hide 

Beneath that river's rushing tide. 

Shivering she watched the current's force, 

Remembering not its bright, pure source 

Was in the green hills far away. 

The brook where she was wont to play 



SUNSET SYMBOLS. 183 

With " Master Roy ;" nor dreamt each wave 

Was leaping on to fill her grave, 

That childhood's springs, so warm and bright, 

Sullied would sweep to death and night. 

And Master Roy ? His gilded boat, 

By Pleasure steered, is still afloat 

Upon the treacherous stream of life. 

He calls a proud, gay lady " wife," 

But lo ! a shade, reproachful, fair, 

Haunting, pursues him everywhere. 

The world awards him high esteem : 

She sleeps beneath the turbid stream. 

False is man's judgment, fierce his hate, 

Christ's love and mercy infinite ! 

Forever on the river sweeps 

Into the ocean's soundless deeps, 

Fit emblem of the stream of life. 

Which fair or dark, in peace or strife, 

Into that silent sea doth pour. 

Whose mystery guards the eternal shore. 



SUNSET SYMBOLS. 

I WATCHED the sun with lurid splendor set. 

While in the distance dim one tall, dark spire 
Appeared, a sharp and slender barb of jet, 

Transfixino^ a vast s^lobe of s-olden fire. 
Tearing the royal purple of his shroud, 

It seemed to pierce his glory through and through. 
For crimson poured along the waves of cloud, 

And trickled slowly down the western blue. 



184 LITTLE PAUL.. 

And then I thought of this bright world of ours, 

Finished and faultless from the hand of God, 
Ere sin had left a bli2;ht on Eden-bowers, 

Or blood a stain upon the vernal sod. 
Ere Satan's arrow — like a barb of jet — 

Had wounded one among the shining spheres, 
And left it scarred, with Crime's dark signet set, 

A crimson seal upon our mortal years. 

While yet I gazed a heavy surge of cloud, 

Down to the lurid West, was swiftly hurled. 
And overwhelmed its glory, as a shroud 

Of stormy waters whelmed our sinful world. 
Then from the twilight's purple deeps afar 

White flakes of cloud like silver banners streamed, 
And up above that dark waste rose one star 

Pure as Christ's love upon a world redeemed. 



LITTLE PAUL. 

FROM THE FRENCH OF VICTOR HUGO. 

Oh, cruel fate ! a child is born bereft ; ^ 

One life is taken, and the other left. 
Why of a mother's love the child deprive, 
And leave him with a heartless world to strive ? 
For though the father seeks another wife, 
No mother's love shall crown that orphaned life, 
And the fair boy may learn from hate and scorn 
To feel that he has sinned in being born. 



LITTLE PAUL. 185 

The grandsire comes, by tenderness beguiled, 

To mourn the mother and to claim the child. 

Oh ! sweet maternal spirit lost above, 

Thy strength is living in the old man's love. 

Time leaves him fit for little but to take 

The orphan in his arms and live for its sweet sake. 

Strange, and yet natural, when an old man bears 

For childhood's sake its sufferings and its cares. 

The tender little hands outheld to him 

Are stretching from a shadow cold and dim 

To seek one heart beneath an inky sky 

In which sweet pity's springs are not yet dry. 



A gentle goat with fawn-like eye is found 
Among the flocks that on the mountain bound 
To nourish the fair orphan, and to give 
Sweetness and strength, that he may drink and live. 
'Tis well the old man's heart with love is rife ; 
Thus Grod, the master both of death and life. 
For the lost mother leaves the old grandsire, 
Thrilling the winter-time of age with fire. 
Till in his soul warm summer fountains start. 
Warm as the summer of a woman's heart. 



The humble little Paul, an orphan born. 
With grand blue shadowy eyes, smiling as morn. 
A prattler heedless of all wrong or blame. 
Saucy and fresh, and innocent of shame, 
God's own creation, perfect, pure, and sweet. 
The angel man before he is complete ! 
Pallid with years, the grandsire sees unfold 
This dawning life, as one doth mark the gold 

16^ 



186 LITTLE PAUL. 

Of early morning. How this setting sun 
Adores the glory of the rising one ! 



The grandsire takes the infant to his home, 
A country place, all girt about with bloom, 
Spanned by a vast horizon, — vast until 
One little child was found the space to fill ! 
The plains were verdant, and sweet breezes came 
From waving forest and from murmuring stream, 
And near the house a garden stretched ablaze 
With the rich glory of the summer days. 
Caressed by nature in these sylvan bowers. 
The fair child grew, unenvied by the flowers. 

Bright rosy apples, peaches rich and sweet. 

Crown that fair garden ; tangled brier-wreaths meet 

Across its pathways ; drooping willows trail 

In trembling waters, where cloud shadows pale 

As marble gleam like rounded shoulders fair 

Of woodland nymphs in beauty bathing there. 

The nested birds from trees in verdure dressed 

Chant hymns obscure and sweet, — songs of the blest. 

Clear rills through tender mosses whisper low, 

And all these warblings, and the silence too, 

With sweet confusion of the rustling leaves. 

Make paradise ; the gay light subtly weaves 

A song, which Heaven, in its celestial mirth. 

Chants to the echo of the listening earth. 

In summer, when the azure glows and gleams, 

This garden pure an earthly Eden seems, 

And Paul, almost an angel sporting there. 

Was loved in that sweet solitude so fair. 



LITTLE PAUL, 187 

Alas ! 'twas there, by truth and beauty moved, 
The child first learned to live in being loved ! 



A garden is most beautiful ; but place 

A roguish child, bright, smili;ig, full of grace, 

Among its sweets, and let an old man fill 

The place of nurse, — 'tis thus that God doth will. 

Combine the longings of the eyes and heart, 

Such poesy is nature's finest art ! 

The child by the old man, the roses by the child, 

The flowers are of his age, and the old man beguiled 

By love and beauty cometh, — nothing loth, — 

Feeling that he is welcome unto both. 

In April it is sweet to laugh and sing. 

Behold a rosy young child wandering, 

Or lying 'mid the flowers, divinely fragile, — 

A tender pastoral theme for thee, Virgil ! 

Paul is so frail at first, will his life last ? 

Oh, who can tell? A bitter wind swept past 

The night that he was born. Oh treacherous breath 

The mother pierced, didst mark the child for death ? 

Paul must be nursed ; a goat to him is led, 

And he is foster-brother to the kid. 

As the kid bounds must step and walk the boy, — 

The grandsire leads him. Oh, it is such joy ! 

To children runnins:, stumblino; without fear, 

A stone is Scylla, and a bench or chair 

May, like Charybdis, whirl them from their way, 

But falling shadows not the joy of play. 

A young branch shaken by the wind or shower. 

Trembling or swaying, ceases not to flower. 



188 LITTLE PAUL. 

One year ! It is a proud and happy age. 
Paul takes his first step on life's varied stage. 
To grow is still to conquer, — he takes others. 
In your own babes behold him, tender mothers ! 
Fair si^ht, — the 2:randsire and the little one ! 
^' Take care, don't fall, that's it, now all alone !" 
And Paul is brave, risks, hesitates, and calls, 
Then all at once runs off, and almost falls, 
While aged hands, his balance to restore, 
Held trembling, make the totterer totter more. 
And all this in a roar of laughter ends. 
For the old man and little child are friends ! 
Oh, who can paint a star ? — who truly tell 
Of forests warmed by sunlight's subtle spell ? 
We cannot sound the deeps of childish mirth, 
'Tis love and sinless innocence on earth. 
It is the fearlessness of matchless grace, 
Glory of being upright, perfect peace. 
Of ignorance that knoweth all what can we know ? 
That laugh is Heaven revealed, is God below. 

Reverend as pictured saints on Bible page. 
This old man Moses mi2;ht have hailed as sasre 
Was nothinf>: but a ""ood ^-randsire bejiuiled 
By the sweet coaxing prattle of a child. 
Charmed, he resisted not, and full of joy, 
Honored, consulted, and obeyed the boy. 
He watched the sun of intellect arise 
And break in reason's dawn through infant eyes. 
Fresh flights of prattle Paul each month did reach, 
Fresh ideas trembling on the path of speech, — 
A slow ascension of the word that flies, 
Then falls, and then again doth gayly rise ! 



LITTLE PAUL. 189 

And all these sounds and ideas swept along, 

And ran into a baby's babbling song, 

Inspired by sinless joy, a rhyme of pleasure, 

Scanned by some sweet, obscure, and winged measure ! 

He prattled, chattered on from morn till night, 

While the house listened, ravished with delight. 

All laughed to hear him sing or hear him prate, 

His mirth was as a signal for a fete. 

Ah ! e'en the trees in summer beauty dressed 

Whispered of him, — and little Paul was blessed ! 

With an authority profound and gay 

Paul reigned ; his grandsire, sweet and willing prey, 

Heard and obeyed him : " come," '' go," " carry," " bring," 

And it was done. 'Tis thus that vernal spring 

The rights of youth o'er aged winter gains, 

And crowned with beauty all triumphant reigns. 

They made a charming household, good and blest, 

The grandson tyrant, the grandsire oppressed. 

He strove to please the child from day to day. 

As cold December might to charm bright May. 

They wandered, 'mid the songs of nested birds, 

Both alike innocent in thousrhts and words. 

Two years the one, eighty the other's lot ; 

The child remembered, the old man forgot ! 

No spells of gloom for them dark nights could weave, 

Made by his sire to think, Paul taught him to believe, 

And, changing souls, as that fair place they trod, 

Each to the other showed some phase of God. 

By day was shared their joy, by night their sleep. 

Celestial love between them pure and deep. 

As the first step in the first alphabet. 

With blest communion these pure spirits met. 



190 LITTLE PAUL. 

There were no words tender enough to tell 

The grandsire's love, or teach his child to spell. 

Oh. my sweet angel ! Paul mv best beloved ! 

Exquisite dialogues, these lessons proved. 

'Tis thus, in fable, that the bluebirds sing 

Their tender warblings to the listening spring. 

" Take care, your feet are wet ; don't go too ft\r." 

" I did not mean to wet them, dear papa." 

" Take care the rocks ; keep on the grass." ^' Yes, yes." 

Pacific Heaven their pure love seemed to bless, 

And up above the sun in triumph smiled, 

Seeing the old man kiss the forehead of the child. 



The father elsewhere dwells with a new wife, — 
In vain the tomb with memory is rife, — 
A new soul fills his home, he dwells in joy ; 
This second wife, — she also has a boy ! 
Paul knew not of it, and it mattered not, 
For happy, prosperous, blessed in his lot, 
Gray, tranquil, he had only one desire. 
To love, and be beloved by, his grandsire. 
The rest, did it exist ? And fate replied 
Too soon in sorrow, for the old man died. 

When Boaz said to Ruth. •• Weep, for I die," 
She wept and mourned, but to the young child's eye, 
Cloudins: its brightness, came no mist of tears. 
He thought and wondered, yet he knew no fears, 
When the old man in weariness had said, 
^* Paul, I must die. Alas ! when I am dead 
Thy old grandsire oh nevermore thou'lt see. 
Who dies as he has lived, in loving thee !" 



LITTLE PAUL. 191 

But the sweet light of ignorance is strong, — 
The child laughed on, gushing with joy and song. 

A humble little country church, scarce higher 

Than were the low roofs shaded by its spire, 

Was opened. Of that sad train I was one. 

The good priest murmured a vague orison. 

From the dear, good old grandsire's house that day 

Friends and relations bore his form away. 

The bloomino; meadows lausrhed in the soft breeze : 

The flowers appear to love such mysteries. 

The good old men their voices joined in prayer. 

I see it all ! the broken pathway there, 

A cow beside the way contented lies, 

Watching the passers with maternal eyes. 

The peasants all the buds of summer wear, 

And little Paul walks next the humble bier. 

They bore the old m.an 'neath his lowly pall 

To an old graveyard with a broken wall, 

Near to the church, inclosure rough and rude, 

No haughty tombs in that bare solitude. 

No false inscriptions ; there no cypress waves. 

They enter a rude field of crosses and of graves 

By a rough gate of wood, at nightfall closed ; 

There in a sleep secure the dead reposed. 

Along the bars thick vines of ivy massed ; 

The child marked well that entrance as he passed. 

Fate unto children doth a vision seem. 
And life unto their sight appears a dream. 
Across that rising star a shadow rolled, 
Alas ! and Paul was only three years old. 



192 LITTLE PAUL. 

" You little pest ! you ugly, wicked child ! 

Begone, I hate you ! you will drive me wild ! 

To suffer him at table now I find 

Quite insupportable, — I am too kind ! 

He drinks up all the milk, he soils my dress ! 

Into the cellar for his naughtiness ! 

He is so ugly ! give him bread alone.'* 

Whom does she speak to ? — Paul, sweet little one ! 

After his grandsire disappeared, alas ! 

He saw his father as a stranger pass 

Into his home, with him a wife and mother, 

Nursing a child, — that infant was his brother. 

The woman hates poor Paul when first they meet. 
Woman ! she is a sphinx, hard-hearted, sweet ; 
Dark on the jealous side, white on the sacred one, 
Hard to another's child, kind to her own. 
Sufferer, apostle, prophet, martyr — there. 
Well ! — but the phantom with the golden hair, 
The child debarred from love by hatred's ban, 
Proscribed already, ere he is a man ! 

After the oak-tree's shade the bramble's thorn. 
Oh, bitter change ! — first love, then hate and scorn ! 

Paul comprehends no longer, yet his room 
At eventide to him is dark with gloom. 
Often he weeps, grief vague and undefined ; 
He trembled like a reed swept by the wind. 
His wakening eyes amazed now saw the morn. 
These poor, sad little ones, why are they born ? 
Within his home light seemed to find no place, 
Morning no more appeared to know his face ! 



LITTLE PAUL. 193 

Whene'er he came, " Deliver me !" she cried, 

This mother. Slowly then the child doth glide 

Into the shadow, mute with grief profound. 

It was as if he'd seen his cradle drowned ! 

This child of joy all joyless found the hours ; 

His sorrow grieved the sweet birds and the flowers. 

" He plagues me !" — *' Dirty, grovelling on the earth !" 

Paul was no more a spark to trains of mirth ; 

His toys were now another's. Full of bliss, 

The amorous father took no note of this. 

"Angel" to the old man who kissed his brow. 

Poor little one ! he is a leper now. 

The woman hated Paul, and in her heart 

She cried, " From out my life let him depart !" 

This curse was followed by a fond caress, 

But not for him. " Come love, my happiness ! 

One of thy fairest angels. Lord divine, 

I've stolen wrapped in heavenly light, — he's mine ! 

A child, and yet an angel to my breast, 

The paradise of the good Lord is pressed ! 

How beautiful the child I love and prize ! — 

The man that is to be ; how grand his size ! 

A walking boy has scarce more weight than this 

Light of my heart ; thy pretty feet I kiss !" 

Paul, with the dreamy memory that embalms 

Sweet summer thoughts for roses and for lambs, 

Remembered in the past, half vague and dim, 

These same endearing things were said to him. 

In a dark corner now he takes his meals. 
He is mute, he speaks not, yet he thinks and feels ; 
I n 17 



194 LITTLE PAUL. 

For infancy subdued by hate and wrong, 
Ceasing to weep, is sometimes brave and strong. 
He often looks in sorrow towards the door, 
Watching for one who comes, alas ! no more. 

One eve for him throughout the house they seek. 
'Tis winter, time that hates us, cold and bleak, 
When night is like a snare, when white drifts grow 
On little footprints lost amid the snow. 
And the next morning those who found the child 
Remembered distant cries, which had beguiled 
Some one to laugh amid the listening crowds, 
Thinking they heard a voice out of the clouds, 
Crossing the shadows on the wind from far. 
Crying out plaintively, " Papa, papa !" 
They found him at the graveyard all alone, 
Calm as the night, and colorless as stone. 
He tried to enter, — failed, — and in despair 
Fell at the entrance, and was frozen there ! 
How had he come to that sad place alone 
Across the plain, where no bright fire-light shone ? 
They saw that he had tried to force the gate, 
For one cold little hand still held the grate. 
He called beneath the shadows bleak and dim. 
For one within he felt could succor him. 
Long, long, unto that only friend he cried. 
Then fell upon the frozen earth and died. 
Paul found his grandsire's rest too calm and deep 
For him to break, so he too fell asleep. 



KING WINTER'S FROLIC. 195 

KING WINTER'S FROLIC. 

AN IDYL. 

King Winter, arrayed in his icicle-crown, 

Clad in vestments of glittering rime, 
From his glacier-throne stepped royally down, 

Bent on having a jolly good time. 
" As Popery now seems to be all the go," 

Quoth the King, ^' as a Priest I'll disguise, 
And confess the Old Year : 'twill be such fun to know 

All his secrets before he dies." 
A cowl from the darkness of midnight he stole, 

A stole from the star-light he fleeced, 
And robed thus,, looked fitted to shrive any soul, 

Who for saving — depends on the Priest ! 
With crucifix wrought from a storm-blasted tree, 

And with ice-crusted cones of the pine 
For a rosary strung, — " Disguised thus," quoth he, 

" At a Mardi-Grras ball I might shine." 
Now sturdy King Winter, like monarchs of old. 

Keeps a jester, whose name is Jack Frost, — 
A mischievous elf, both cunning and bold. 

Bent on fun, heedless what it may cost. 
" Come, Jack," said his master, " and powder my beard 

With a snow-storm ; for I would appear 
A venerable friar, both hoary and weird. 

Going forth to confess the Old Year." 
Jack did his behest, but blew a cold breath 

Into Winter's calm face till it froze. 
And laughing, cried, " Sire, no spirit in death 

Would hang on to your jolly red nose." 



196 KING WINTER'S FROLIC. 

^' Peace, minion, be quiet ; what is it to you 

If I wear a bright spot on my face ? 
To Hack friars or white, false friars or true, 

Jolly noses are deemed no disgrace." 
" Let's go, then," quoth Jack ; " hide me under your cowl ; 

I'll be quiet, — you know it's my way. 
There comes old St. Nick, looking wise as an owl, 

We'll bes: for a ride in his sleish." 
The old Saint looks seedy and rather played out, 

As most likely are all of the toys 
Which through this wide world he's been stuffing about 

In the stockings of good girls and boys." 
^- Hallo, Santa Claus !" cried out saucy Jack Frost, 

'' You look tired ; so pray let me drive. 
The King's on a spree" — and his forehead he crossed — 

*' For the Old Year he's going to shrive." 
" Ha ! ha !" laughed St. Nick, with a droll little wink, 

" Such a frolic is just to my mind ; 
But King Winter, to pass as a friar, I think 

Better leave his pert jester behind." 
*' Behind King and Saint," said Jack, '■ I will try 

To sit out on guard in the rumble. 
Then — if there's an upset — the Devil may fry 

Who 'scapes from my bite in the tumble." 
Jack whistled, and off flew St. Nick's jolly team, 

Over thousands of miles, more or less, 
At a pace that would cause the inventor of steam 

To feel slow on his lightning express. 
Down the track of the blustering whirlwind they crash ; 

Through the heart of the storm-cloud they go ; 
Their coursers are swift as the keen lightning flash, 

And their chariot is lighter than snow. 



KING WINTER'S FROLIC, 197 

Over mountains and cities and seas, till at last, 

Far outstripping the wild winds through space, 
The Old Year they found, near the vaults of the past, 

On the verge of the jumping-off place. 
" Halloo, there, old sinner ! prepare for your shrift," 

Cried Jack Frost ; " are you ready to meet 
This friar so holy, who comes here to sift 

All the chaff of your life from the wheat ?" 
" Peace, peace, wicked elf," quoth the King, " for I wot 

Your censure is not worth a tittle. 
And ' sinner' from you sounds too much like the pot 

Crying ' fie, you're black,' to the kettle ; 
Pray think of the hearts smitten cold by your spells. 

The blood turned to ice by your breath ; 
How mocking the sound of earth's merry sleigh-bells 

To your victims now freezing in death ! 
Come under my cowl, where you promised to lie. 

Or be off on the wings of the storm ; 
The New Year can live, and the Old Year can die, 

Without looking to you for reform." 

y^ ^f' ^ 'J* 5fC JjC ?yC ^ ^ 

Hail ! now, all hail to this mournful procession ! 

Welcome the sad spirits gathering here. 
Fays, goblins, gnomes, meet to chant his confession ; 

Hark — mis-e-re-re ! the dying year. 
I've torn a white scroll from yon cloud on the mountain ; 

I've stolen a pen from the wings of the dark. 
And dipped it deep down in the night's blackest fountain, 

This record of hobgoblin wonders to mark. 



17* 



198 /r/.VG WIXTER'S FROLIC. 



THE OLD teak's CONFESSION. 



I am dying, father, dying ! 

Swinging on the midnight air 
In my frozen hammock, sighing 

O'er the reckoning^ I must bear 
To the ghastly court of ages, 

Mourninc:, wailinsr as I eo, 
That one more of Time's bright pages 

Turned, with scarlet sins doth glow ! 

Sin and wrong and treachery flourish. 

In the crreat world's murkv marts : 
For the men who build them nourish 

Selfish passions in their hearts. 
Ritualism rules the churches ; 

Fierce ambition rules the State ; 
Crown and mitre mock our searches 

For the good among the great. 

It is power that monarchs covet, 

Not the right of doing good ; 
And the holy priesthood love it, 

Too, far better than they should ; 
For they dwell so much on altars, 

On incense and on choirs. 
That the spirit faints and falters 

In its heavenly desires. 

Less condemned are hate and malice 
Than light merriment and mirth ; 

Monstrous humbug rules the palace, 
And the cloister and the hearth ; 



KING WINTER'S FROLIC. 199 

Holy men, who deem the trammels 

Of the decalogue too light, 
Strain at gnats and swallow camels 

In the congregations' sight. 



Pampered statesmen gloat like Neros 

Over wealth to glut their greed ; 
Knaves we find — while seeking heroes- 

Too corrupted to take heed 
Of what law or right requires 

For the man who ploughs or delves ; 
Rulers ruled by base desires 

Make the masses like themselves. 



Hearts are bartered for a jewel ; 

Women sell themselves for gold, 
But to curse their fate as cruel 

When it leaves, unloved and old. 
Ruined charms they might have given 

Unto happiness and truth, 
When they balanced Hell and Heaven 

In the fairy scales of youth. 

I am dying. Winter, dying ; 

To the dim past floating down ; 
Hark ! the New Year now is crying 

For my sceptre and my crown. 
Let him take them, — let him wear them ] 

I would rather drift away 
To Eternity than bear them 

For another earthly day. 



200 KING WINTERS FROLIC, 

" Hurrah ! lie's play'd out, and I'm glad," cried Jack Frost, 

" He's gone off in a terrible huff. 
I suppose we should grieve over time that is lost ; 

But who'd mourn for that surly old muff? 
Complaining and groaning that all things are evil, 

Never saying one word for the good : 
From his account all men are bound for the Devil, 

And the few who don't go to him, should. 
I hate all such snivelling and sobbing and croaking. 

So I blew in his face (for sheer spite) 
All the sleet I could raise : it was very provoking 

To hear him groan out of my sight. 
(Dome, Nick, drive us back to the King's frozen palace, 

Through the clouds where the morning is clear; 
I'll gather sun-drops in my rime-crystal chalice, 

Beaming bumpers to pledge the New Year !" 



THE END. 



^ 




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